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THE CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION 

AND 

ITS THEOLOGY. 



c 3^*3,/?' 



THE 



CONSERVATIVE KEEORMATION 



AND 



ITS THEOLOGY: 



AS REPRESENTED IN THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION, AND IN THE 

HISTORY AND LITERATURE OF THE EVANGELICAL 

LUTHERAN CHURCH. 



By CHARLES P. KRAUTH, D.D., 

NORTON PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, 

AND PROFESSOR OF INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE 

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 





PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO. 

18 71. 



■Ifl 



!*T 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO., 

in the Office of tho Librarian of Congress at Washington. 



LIPPINCOTT'S PRESS 
PHILADELPHIA. 



i^o ifu Pemcrg 



CHARLES PHILIP KRAUTH, D.D. ? 

MY VENERATED AND SAINTED FATHER, 

THIS BOOK 



fctotal 



PREFACE. 



THAT some form of Christianity is to be the religion of the world, 
is not only an assured fact to the believer in Revelation, but must 
be regarded as probable, even in the judgment which is formed on 
purely natural evidence. Next in transcendent importance to that 
fact, and beyond it in present interest, as a question relatively un- 
decided, is the question, What form of Christianity is to conquer 
the w T orld? Shall it be the form in which Christianity now exists, 
the form of intermingling and of division, of internal separation and 
warfare? Is the territory of Christendom forever to be divided be- 
tween antagonistic communions, or occupied by them conjointly? Shall 
there be to the end of time the Greek, the Roman, the Protestant 
'churches, the sects, and the heretical bodies ? Or shall one or other of 
these specific forms lift itself above the tangled mass, and impose order 
on chaos ? Or shall a form yet nnrevealed prove the church of the future? 
To this the answer seems to be, that the logic of the question, supported 
by eighteen centuries of history, renders it probable that some prin- 
ciple, or some combination of principles now existent, will assuredly, 
however slowly, determine the ultimate, world-dominating type of 
Christianity. Unless there be an exact balance of force in the differ- 
ent tendencies, the internally strongest of them will ultimately prevail 
over the others, and, unless a new force superior to it comes in, will 
be permanent. 

The history of Christianity, in common with all genuine history, 
moves under the influence of two generic ideas: the conservative, 
which desires to secure the present by fidelity to the results of the past ; 
the progressive, which looks out, in hope, to a better future. Reforma- 
tion is the great harmonizer of the two principles. Corresponding with 
Conservatism, Reformation, and Progress are three generic types of Chris- 
tianity ; and under these genera all the species are but shades, modifica- 
tions, or combinations, as all hues arise from three primary colors. 
Conservatism without Progress produces the Romish and Greek type 



vm PREFACE. 

of the Church. Progress without Conservatism runs into Revolution, 
Radicalism, and Sectarianism. Reformation is antithetical both to pas- 
sive persistence in wrong or passive endurance of it, and to Revolution 
as a mode of relieving wrong. Conservatism is opposed to Radicalism 
both in the estimate of wrong and the mode of getting rid of it. Radi- 
calism errs in two respects : in its precipitance it often mistakes w T heat for 
tares, and its eradication is so hasty and violent that even when it plucks 
up tares it brings the wheat with them. Sober judgment and sober means 
characterize Conservatism. Reformation and Conservatism really in- 
volve each other. That which claims to be Reformatory, yet is not Con- 
servative, is Sectarian; that which claims to be Conservative, and is not 
Reformatory, is Stagnation and Corruption. True Catholicity is Con- 
servatism, but Protestantism is Reformatory ; and these two are com- 
plementary, not antagonistic. The Church problem is to attain a Pro- 
testant Catholicity or Catholic Protestantism. This is the end and 
aim of Conservative Reformation. 

Reformation is the means by which Conservatism of the good that 
is, and progress to the good yet to be won, is secured. Over against 
the stagnation of an isolated Conservatism, the Church is to hold 
Reformation as the instrument of progress. Over against the abuses 
of a separatistic and one-sided progressiveness, she is to see to it 
that her Reformation maintains that due reverence for history, that 
sobriety of tone, that patience of spirit, and that moderation of 
manner, which are involved in Conservatism. The good that has been 
is necessary to the safety of the good that is to be. There are to be 
no absolutely fresh starts. If the foundation were removed, the true 
course would not be to make a new one, but to find the old one, and 
lay it again. But the foundation never was wholly lost, nor was there, 
in the worst time of the accumulation of wood, hay, and stubble, an 
utter ceasing of the building of gold, silver, and precious stones upon it. 
The Reformation, as Christian, accepted the old foundation ; as reform- 
atory, it removed the wood, hay, and stubble ; as conservative, it care- 
fully separated, guarded, and retained the gold, silver, and precious 
stones, the additions of pious human hands, befitting the foundation and 
the temple which was to be reared upon it. Rome had accumulated 
greatly and given up nothing, till the foundation upheld little but per- 
ishing human traditions, and the precious things were lost in the heaps 
of rubbish. The revolutionary spirit of the radical Reform proposed to 
leave nothing but the foundation, to sweep from it everything which had 
been built upon it. The Conservative, equally accepting the foundation- 
which has been laid once for all, proposed to leave on it everything pre- 



PREFACE. ix 

cious, pure, and beautiful which had risen in the ages. The one proposed 
to pull down the temple ; the other, to purify it, and to replace its weak 
and decayed portions with solid rock. The great work of the sixteenth 
century, which bears the generic title of the Reformation, was divided be- 
tween these tendencies ; not, indeed, absolutely to the last extreme, but 
yet really divided. The whole Protestant movement in the Church of the 
West was reformatory as over against papal Rome, and was so far a 
unit ; but it was divided within itself, between the conservative and radi- 
cal tendencies. The conservative tendency embodied itself in the Ref- 
ormation, in which Luther was the leader; the radical, in Zwingle and 
his school. Calvin came in to occupy a relatively mediating position, — 
conservative as compared with the ultraism of Zwinglianism, and of the 
heretical tendencies which Zwinglianism at once nurtured, yet, rela- 
tively to Lutheranism, largely radical. 

The Church of England is that part of the Reformed Church for which 
most affinity with the conservatism of Lutheranism is usually claimed. 
That Church occupies a position in some respects unique. First, under 
Henry VIII., ceasing to be Popish without ceasing to be Romish ; then 
passing under the influences of genuine reformation into the positively 
Lutheran type ; then influenced by the mediating position of the school 
of Bucer, and of the later era of Melancthon, a school which claimed the 
ability practically to co-ordinate the Lutheran and Calvinistic positions ;. 
and finally settling into a system of compromise, in which is revealed the 
influence of the Roman Catholic views of Orders in the ministry, and, 
to some extent, of the Ritual ; of the Lutheran tone of reformatory 
conservatism, in the general structure of the Liturgy, in the larger 
part of the Articles, and especially in the doctrine of Baptism ; of the 
mediating theology in the doctrine of predestination ; and of Calvin- 
ism in particular changes in the Book of Common Prayer, and, most 
of all, in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper. The Conservatism 
of the Church of England, even in the later shape of its reform, in 
many respects is indubitable, and hence it has often been called 
a Lutheranizing Church. But the pressure of the radicalism to 
which it deferred, perhaps too much in the essence and too little in 
the form, brought it to that eclecticism which is its most marked 
feature. Lutheranizing, in its conservative sobriety of modes, the 
Church of England is very un- Lutheran in its judgment of ends. The 
conservatism of the Lutheran Reformation exalted, over all, pure doc- 
trine as the divine presupposition of a pure life, and this led to an ample 
and explicit statement of faith. While the Church of England stated 
doctrines so that men understood its utterances in different ways, 



x PREFACE. 

the Lutheran Church tried so to state them that men could accept 
them in but one sense. If one expression was found inadequate for 
this, she gave another. The Lutheran Church has her Book of Con- 
cord, the most explicit Confession ever made in Christendom; the 
Church of England has her Thirty-nine Articles, the least explicit 
among the official utterances of the Churches of the Keformation. 
The Eclectic Keformation is like the Eclectic Philosophy, — it accepts 
the common affirmation of the different systems, and refuses their nega- 
tions. Like the English language, the English Church is a miracle of 
compositeness. In the wonderful tessellation of their structure is the 
strength of both, and their weakness. The English language is two 
languages inseparably conjoined. It has the strength and affluence of 
the two, and something of the awkwardness necessitated by their 
union. The Church of England has two great elements ; but they are 
not perfectly preserved in their distinctive character, but, to some 
extent, are confounded in the union. With more uniformity than any 
other great Protestant body, it has less unity than any. Partly in 
virtue of its doctrinal indeterminateness, it has been the home of men of 
the most opposite opinions : no Calvinism is intenser, no Arminianism 
lower, than the Calvinism and Arminianism which have been found in 
the Church of England. It has furnished able defenders of Augustine, 
and no less able defenders of Pelagius. Its Articles, Homilies, and 
Liturgy have been a great bulwark of Protestantism ; and yet, seem- 
ingly, out of the very stones of that bulwark has been framed, in our 
day, a bridge on which many have passed over into Home. It has a 
long array of names dear to our common Christendom as the masterly 
vindicators of her common faith, and yet has given high place to 
men who denied the fundamental verities confessed in the general 
creeds. It harbors a skepticism which takes infidelity by the hand, 
and a revised medievalism which longs to throw itself, with tears, on 
the neck of the Pope and the Patriarch, to beseech them to be gentle, 
and not to make the terms of restored fellowship too difficult. The 
doctrinal indeterminateness which has won has also repelled, and made 
it an object of suspicion not only to great men of the most opposite 
opinions, but also to great bodies of Christians. It has a doctrinal 
laxity which excuses, and, indeed, invites, innovation, conjoined with 
an organic fixedness which prevents the free play of the novelty. 
Hence the Church of England has been more depleted than any other, 
by secessions. Either the Anglican Church must come to more fix- 
edness in doctrine or to more pliableness in form, or it will go on, 
through cycle after cycle of disintegration, toward ruin. In this land, 



PREFACE. xi 

which seems the natural heritage of that Church which claims the 
Church of England as its mother, the Protestant Episcopal Church 
is numerically smallest among the influential denominations. Its 
great social strength and large influence in every direction only ren- 
der more striking the fact that there is scarcely a Church, scarcely a 
sect, having in common with it an English original, which is not far 
in advance of it in statistical strength. Some of the largest commu- 
nions have its rigidity in form, some of the largest have its looseness in 
doctrine ; but no other large communion attempts to combine both. The 
numbers of those whom the Church of England has lost are millions. It 
has lost to Independency, lost to Presbyterianism, lost to Quakerism, lost 
to Methodism, lost to Romanism, and lost to the countless forms of Sec- 
tarianism of which England and America, England's daughter, have 
been, beyond all nations, the nurses. The Church of England has 
been so careful of the rigid old bottle of the form, yet so careless or so 
helpless as to what the bottle might be made to hold, that the new 
wine which went into it has been attended in every case by the same 
history, — the fermenting burst the bottle, and the wine was spilled. 
Every great religious movement in the Church of England has been 
attended ultimately by in irreparable loss in its membership. To this 
rule there has been n< exception in the past. Whether the present 
movement which convulses the Church of England and the Protestant 
Episcopal Church in America, is to have the same issue, belongs, per- 
haps, rather to the prophet's eye than to the historian's pen. Yet to those 
who, though they stand without, look on with profound sympathy, 
the internal difficulties which now agitate those Churches seem in- 
capable of a real, abiding harmonizing. True compromise can only 
sacrifice preferences to secure principles. The only compromise which 
seems possible in the Anglican Churches would be one which would sac- 
rifice principles to secure preferences, and nothing can be less certain 
of permanence than preferences thus secured. These present difficul- 
ties in the Anglican Churches proceed not from contradiction of its prin- 
ciples, but from development of them. These two classes of seeds were 
sown by the husbandmen themselves, — that was the compromise. The 
tares may grow till the harvest, side by side with the wheat, with which 
they mingle, but which they do not destroy, but the thorns which choke 
the seed must be plucked up, or the seed will perish. Tares are men ; 
thorns are moral forces of doctrine or of life. The agitation in the An- 
glican Churches can end only in the victory of the one tendency and the 
silencing of the other, or in the sundering of the two. In Protestant- 
ism nothing is harder than to silence, nothing easier than to sunder. 



xii PREFACE. 

If the past history of the Anglican Church, hitherto unvaried in the 
ultimate result, repeat itself here, the new movement will end in a 
formal division, as it already has in a moral one. The trials of a 
Church which has taken a part in our modern civilization and Christi- 
anity which entitles it to the veneration and gratitude of mankind, can 
be regarded with indifference only by the sluggish and selfish, and with 
malicious joy only by the radically bad. 

The classification of Churches by tendencies is, of course, relative.' 
No great organization moves so absolutely along the line of a single 
tendency as to have nothing in it beyond that tendency, or contradic- 
tory to it. The wilfulness of some, the feeble-mindedness of others, 
the power of surrounding influences, modify all systems in their actual 
working. There was some conservatism in the Swiss reformation, and 
there has been and is something of the reformatory tendency in the 
Church of Kome. The Keformation took out a very large part of the 
best material influenced by this tendency in Kome, but not all of it. 

The object of this book is not to delineate the spirit and doctrines 
of the Reformation as a general movement over against the doctrinal 
and practical errors of the Roman Church, but to state and vindicate 
the faith and spirit of that part of the movement which was conserva- 
tive, as over against the part which was radical. It is the Lutheran 
Reformation in those features which distinguish it from the Zwinglian 
and Calvinistic Reformations, which forms the topic of this book. 
Wherever Calvin abandoned Zwinglianism he approximated Lutheran- 
ism. Hence, on important points, this book, in defending Lutheranism 
over against Zwinglianism, defends Calvinism over against Zwinglian- 
ism also. It even defends Zwinglianism, so far as, in contrast with Ana- 
baptism, it was relatively conservative. The Pelagianism of the 
Zwinglian theology was corrected by Calvin, who is the true father 
of the Reformed Church, as distinguished from the Lutheran. The 
theoretical tendencies of Zwingle developed into Arminianism and Ra- 
tionalism ; his practical tendencies into the superstitious anti-ritualism 
of ultra-Puritanism: and both the theoretical and practical found their 
harmony and consummation in Unitarianism. 

The plan of this book is, in some respects, new. It aims at bringing 
under a single point of view what is usually scattered through different 
classes of books. It endeavors to present the Exegesis, the Dogmatical 
and Confessional development, and the History associated with each 
doctrine, with a full list of the most important writers in the literature 
of each topic. Its rule is, whether the views stated are accepted or 
rejected, to give them in the words of their authors. The citations 



PREFACE. xm 

from other languages are always translated, but when the original 
words have a disputed meaning, or a special force or importance, they 
are also quoted. The author has, as nearly as he was able, given to 
the book such an internal completeness as to render it unnecessary to 
refer to other works while reading it. While he has aimed at some- 
thing of the thoroughness which the scholar desires, he has also en- 
deavored to meet the wants of that important and growing class of 
readers who have all the intelligence needed for a full appreciation of 
the matter of a book, but are repelled by the technical difficulties of 
form suggested by the pedantry of authors, or permitted by their care- 
lessness or indolence. 

So far as the author's past labors were available for the purposes of 
this work, he has freely used them. In no case has a line been allowed 
to stand which does not express a present conviction, not simply as to 
what is true, but as to the force of the grounds on which its truth is 
argued. In what has been taken from his articles in Reviews, and in 
other periodicals, he has changed, omitted, and added, in accordance 
with a fresh study of all the topics. He has also drawn upon some of 
the Lectures delivered by him to his theological classes, and thankfully 
acknowledges the use, for this purpose, of the notes made by his pupils, 
Rev. F. W. Weiskotten, of Elizabethtown, Pa., and Messrs. Bieber 
and Foust. To Lloyd P. Smith, Esq., Librarian, and to Mr. George 
M. Abbot, Assistant Librarian, of the Philadelphia and Loganian Li- 
braries, the author is indebted for every possible facility in the use of 
those valuable collections. 

An Index has been prepared, in which the effort has been made to 
avoid the two generic vices of a scantiness which leaves the reader in 
perplexity, and a minuteness which confuses him. 

The positions taken in this book are largely counter, in some respects, 
to the prevailing theology of our time and our land. No man can be 
more fixed in his prejudice against the views here defended than the 
author himself once was ; no man can be more decided in his opinion that 
those views are false than the author is now decided in his faith that they 
are the truth. They have been formed in the face of all the influences 
of education and of bitter hatred or of contemptuous disregard on the 
part of nearly all who were most intimately associated with him in the 
period of struggle. Formed under such circumstances, under what he be- 
lieves to have been the influence of the Divine Word, the author is per- 
suaded that they rest upon grounds which cannot easily be moved. In its 
own nature his work is, in some degree, polemical ; but its conflict is 
purely with opinions, never with persons. The theme itself, as it involves 



xiv PREFACE. 

questions within our common Protestantism, renders the controversy 
principally one with defects or errors in systems least remote in the main 
from the faith vindicated in this volume. It is most needful that 
those nearest each other should calmly argue the questions which still 
divide them, as there is most hope that those already so largely in af- 
finity may come to a yet more perfect understanding. 

The best work of which isolated radicalism is capable is that of 
destroying evil. The more earnestly radicalism w r orks, the sooner is 
its mission accomplished. Conservatism works to a normal condition, 
and rests at last in habit. Kadicalism presupposes the abnormal. 
Itself an antithesis, it dies with the thing it kills. The long, fixed 
future must therefore be in the hands of conservatism in some shape ; 
either in the hands of a mechanical conservatism, as in the Church of 
Rome, or of a reformatory conservatism, as represented in that histori- 
cal and genuine Protestantism which is as distinct from the current 
sectarianism, in some respects, as it is from Romanism in others. The 
purest Protestantism, that which best harmonizes conservatism and 
reformation, will ultimately control the thinking of the Christian 
Church. The volume which the reader holds in his hand is meant to 
set forth some of the reasons in view of which those who love the 
Evangelical Protestant Church, commonly called the Lutheran Church, 
hope to find pardon for their conviction that in it is found the most 
perfect assimilation and co-ordination of the two forces. It has con- 
served as thoroughly as is consistent with real reformation ; it has 
reformed as unsparingly as is consistent with genuine conservatism. 
The objective concreteness of the old Apostolic Catholicity, Rome has 
exaggerated and materialized till the senses master the soul, they should 
serve. The subjective spirituality of New Testament Christianity is iso- 
lated by the Pseudo-Protestantism, which drags the mutilated organism 
of the Church after it as a body of death from which it would fain 
be delivered, and which it drops at length, altogether, to wander a mel- 
ancholy ghost, or to enter on the endless metempsychosis of sectarianism. 
To distinguish without separating,, and to combine without confusing, 
has been the problem of the Lutheran Church. It has distinguished 
between the form of Christianity and the essence, but has bound them 
together inseparably : the Reformatory has made sacred the individ- 
ual life and liberty, the Conservative has sanctified the concrete order. 
Nor is this claim extravagant in its own nature. No particular 
Church has, on its own showing, a right to existence, except as it 
believes itself to be the most perfect form of Christianity, the form 
which of right should and will be universal. No Church has a right 



PREFACE. XV 

to a part which does not claim that to it should belong the whole. 
That communion confesses itself a sect which aims at no more than 
abiding as one of a number of equally legitimated bodies. That 
communion which does not believe in the certainty of the ultimate 
acceptance of its principles in the whole world has not the heart of a 
true Church. That which claims to be Catholic de facto claims to be 
Universal de jure. 

A true unity in Protestantism would be the death of Popery ; but 
Popery will live until those who assail it are one in their answer to the 
question : What shall take its place ? This book is a statement and a 
defence of the answer given to that question by the communion under 
whose banner the battle with Rome was first fought, — under whose 
leaders the greatest victories over Rome were won. If this Church has 
been a failure, it can hardly be claimed that the Reformation was a suc- 
cess ; and if Protestantism cannot come to harmony with the principles 
by which it was created, as those principles were understood by the 
greatest masters in the reformatory work, it must remain divided until 
division reaches its natural end, — absorption and annihilation. 

March 17, 1871. 



CONTENTS 



Aet. 


Page 


I. 


1 


II. 


22 


. III. 


88 


IV. 


112 


V. 


162 


VI. 


201 


VII. 


268 



THE CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION AND ITS THEOLOGY 

A. The Conservative Reformation : 

I. Occasion and Cause ...... 

II. Chief Organ: Luther. ...... 

III. Chief Instrument: Luther's New Testament . 

B. Church of the Conservative Reformation: Lutheran Church 

C. Confessional Principle of the Conservative Reformation . 

D. Confession of the Conservative Reformation: 

I. Primai'y Confession : Augsburg Confession 
II. Secondary Confessions : Book of Concord 

E. History and Doctrines of the Conservative Reformation ; Mistakes Cor- 

rected VIII. 329 

F. Specific Theology of the Conservative Reformation : 

I. Original Sin (Augsburg Conf., Art. II.) . 

II. Person of Christ ( " " " III.) 

III. Baptism ( " " " IX.) . ' . 

IV. Lord's Supper ( " " " X.) 

1. Thetically Stated 

2. Antithesis Considered ..... 

3. Objections Answered ..... 



. IX. 


355 


X. 


456 


. XL 


518 


XII. 


585 


XIII. 


664 


XIV. 


755 



CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 



THE REFORMATION 

ITS OCCASION AND CAUSE.* 



THE immediate occasion of the Reformation seemed insignifi- 
cant enough. Three hundred and fifty-three years ago, on 
the 31st of October, immense crowds were pouring into an 
ancient city of Germany, bearing in its name, Wittenberg, 
the memorial of its founder, Wittekind the Younger. The 
weather-beaten and dingy little edifices of Wittenberg forbade 
the idea, that the beauty of the city or its commer- Tbe da y be ^ 
cial importance drew the masses to it. Within Day » 
that city was an old church, very miserable and battered, and 

* On the history of the Reformation, the works following may be consulted : 

Bretschneider: Die Deutsch. Reformat. 1855. 

Claude : Defence of the Reformation. Transl. 2 vols. 8vo. London : 1815. 

Cochl^eus : Commentaria de Act. et Scrip. Lutheri. 1549. Fol. 

Cyprian: Nutzlieh. Urkunden. z. Erl. der erst. Reformations- Geschichte. 
Leipz. : 1718. 12mo. 2 Parts. 

D'Aubigne: Histoire de la Reform. Par. : 1835-1838. (Engl., Lond. : 1839. 
New York: 1841.) 

Forstemann : Archiv. f. d. Gesch. d. K. Reformation. Halle: 1831. 8vo. 

Gerdes : Introd. in historiam. Ev. Sec. XVI. renov. 4 vols. 4to. Groning. : 
1744-1752. 

Hagenbach : Vorles. lib. Wes. u. Gesch. d. Reformation. Leipz. : 1839. 8vo. 

Junius : Compend. Seckendorf. (1755) — Reform. Gesch. in Auszug. v. Roos. 
Tub. : 1788. 2 vols. 8vo. 

Keyser: Reformat. Almanach. Erf. 4 vols. 12mo. 1817-1821. 

Mai: Hist. Reformat. Frankf. : 1710. 4to. 

Maimbourg: Hist. du. Lutheranism. Par. : 1680. 4to. 

1 1 



2 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

very venerable and holy, which attracted these crowds. It was 
the " Church of all Saints," in which were shown, to the in- 
expressible delight of the faithful, a fragment of Noah's Ark, 
some soot from the furnace into which the three young He- 
brews were cast, a piece of wood from the crib of the infant 
Saviour, some of St. Christopher's beard, and nineteen thou- 
sand other relics equally genuine and interesting. But over and 
above all these allurements, so well adapted to the taste of 
the time, His Holiness, the Pope, had granted indulgence to 
all who should visit the church on the first of November. 
Against the door of that church of dubious saints, and dubi- 
ous relics, and dubious indulgences, was found fastened, on 
that memorable morning, a scroll unrolled. The writing on it 
was firm ; the nails which held it were well driven in ; the sen- 
timents it conveyed were moderate, yet very decided. The 
material, parchment, was the same which long ago had held 
words of redemption above the head of the Redeemer. The 
contents were an amplification of the old theme of glory — 
Christ on the cross, the only King. The Magna Charta, which 
had been buried beneath the Pope's throne, reappeared on the 
church door. The keynote of the Reformation was struck full 
and clear at the beginning, Salvation through Christ alone. 

It is from the nailing up of these Theses the Reformation 
takes its date. That act became, in the providence of God, the 

Maimbourg: Hist. du. Calvinisme. Par.: 1682. 4to. 

Marheineke: Gesch. d. Teutsch. Reform. Berl.: 1831. 4 vols. 12mo. 

Myconius: Hist. Reformat. Cyprian. Leipz. : 1718. 12mo. 

Neudecker: Gesch. d. Evang. Protestantism. Leipz.: 1844. 2 vols. 8vo. 

Ranke : Deutsch. Gesch. im Zeitalt. d. Reformat. Berl. : 1839. 3 vols. 8vo. 
(Transl. by Sarah Austin.) Philad. : 1844. 8vo. 

Scultetus : Kirchen. Reformat, in Teutschl. d. Guolfimn. Heidelb. : 1618. 4to. 

Seckendorf : Lutheranism. Leipz. : 1694. Fol. Deutsch. 1714. 4to. 

Sleidan : de Stat, relig. et reipub. (1557. 8vo.) Boehme am Ende. Frankf. 
a. M. : 1785-86. 3 vols. 8vo. 

Spalatin: Annales Reformat. (Cyprian.) Leipz.: 1718, 12mo. 

Tentzel: Reformat. Lutheri (Cyprian.) Leipz.: 1718. 12mo. 

Von Seelen: Stromata Lutherana. Liibeck: 1740. 12mo. 

Tillers: Ess. sur l'6sprit et l'influ. d. 1. Reformat, de Luth. Par.: 3d. ed. 
1808. 8vo. Ubers. von Cramer, mit vorred. v. Henke. 2d. ed. Hamb. : 1828. 
2 Parts. 12mo. 

Waddington: Reformat, on the Contin. Lond. : 1841. 3 vols. 8vo. 



THE DAY BEFORE "ALL SAINTS' DAY." 3 

starting-point of the work which, still goes on, and shall for- 
ever go on, that glorious work in which the truth was raised 
to its original purity, and civil and religious liberty were re- 
stored to men. That the Reformation is the spring of modern 
freedom, is no wild assertion of its friends. One of the great- 
est Roman Catholic writers of recent times, Michelet, in the 
Introduction to his Life of Luther, says: "It is not incor- 
rect to say, that Luther has been the restorer of liberty in 
modern times. If he did not create, *he at least courageously 
affixed his signature to that great revolution which rendered 
the right of examination lawful in Europe. And, if we exer- 
cise, in all its plenitude at this day, this first and highest 
privilege of human intelligence, it is to him we are most in- 
debted for it ; nor can we think, speak, or write, without being 
made conscious, at every step, of the immense benefit of this 
intellectual enfranchisement ; " and he concludes with the re- 
mark: " To whom do I owe the power of publishing what I 
am now inditing, except to this liberator of modern thought? " 
Our Church, as clearly, in one sense, the mother of the Reforma- 
tion, as, in another, she is its offspring, the first, and for a 
time, the exclusive possessor of the name Protestantism, its 
source and its mightiest bulwark, our Church has wisely set 
apart a day in each year to commemorate this great deliver- 
ance, and wisely has kept her great Jubilees. There are other 
ways of noting time, besides by its loss. The Church Festi- 
vals note it by its gains, the Church Year marks the time which 
has been redeemed for ever. An old writer describes the 
Church of All-Saints at Wittenberg, as a manger, where in his 
lowly glory the Son of God was born again. Blessed forever be 
the day ! On it, through all time, men shall gather, bringing 
their offerings of praise ; remembering, treasuring, and keep- 
ing untarnished, the holy faith whose restoration was thus 
begun. 

It is well, then, to have added to the grand order of the 
Church Year, the Festival of the Reformation, and to the 
revolution of the centuries, its Jubilee. Whether as the child 
or as the parent of the Reformation, whether she would awake 
her heart to gratitude as its daughter, or arouse herself to an 



4 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

earnest sense of responsibility as its mother, our Church can 
claim it, as pre-eminently her privilege, and acknowledge it as 
pre-eminently her duty so to do. When the Festival of the 
Reformation shall come and shall wake no throb of joy in her 
bosom, her life will have fled. For if the Reformation lives 
through her, she also lives by it. It has to her the mysterious 
relation of Christ to David ; if it is her offspring, it is also her 
root. If she watched the ark of the Lord, the ark of the 
Lord protected and blessed her, and when it passes from her 
keeping her glory will have departed. Let her speak to her 
children then, and tell them the meaning of the day. In the 
pulpit, and the school, and the circle of the home, let these 
great memories of men of God, of their self-sacrifice, of their 
overcoming faith, and of their glorious work, be the theme 
of thought, and of word, and of thanksgiving. The Festival 
of the Reformation is at once a day of Christmas and of Eas- 
ter and of Pentecost, in our Church year ; a day of birth, a 
day of resurrection, a day of the outpouring of the Holy 
Ghost. Let its return renew that life, and make our Church 
press on with fresh vigor in the steps of her risen Lord, as 
one begotten again, and born from the dead, by the quicken- 
ing power of the Spirit of her God. Let every day be a Fes- 
tival of the Reformation, and every year a Jubilee. 

The occasions and cause of so wonderful and important an 
Specific occasion and event as the Reformation have naturally oc- 

cause of the Refor- , -i-ii i p i i • 

nation. cupied very largely the thoughts of both its 

friends and its foes. On the part of its enemies the solution 
of its rapid rise, its gigantic growth, its overwhelming march, 
has been found by some in the rancor of monkish malice — the 
thing arose in a squabble between two sets of friars, about the 
farming of the indulgences — a solution as sapient and as com- 
pletely in harmony with the facts as would be the statement 
that the American Revolution was gotten up by one George 
Washington, who, angry that the British Government refused 
to make him a collector of the tax on tea, stirred up a happy 
people to rebellion against a mild and just rule. 

The solution has been found by others in the lust of the 
human heart for change — it was begotten in the mere love 



SPECIFIC OCCASION AND CAUSE. 5 

of novelty ; men went into the Reformation as they go into a 
menagerie, or adopt the new mode, or buy up some "novel- 
ist's last." Another class, among whom the brilliant French 
Jesuit, Audin, is conspicuous, attribute the movement mainly 
to the personal genius and fascinating audacity of the great 
leader in the movement. Luther so charmed the millions 
with his marvellous speech and magic style, that they were 
led at his will. On the part of some, its nominal friends, 
reasons hardly more adequate have often been assigned. Con- 
founding the mere aids, or at most, the mere occasions of the 
Reformation with its real causes, an undue importance has 
been attributed in the production of it to the progress of the 
arts and sciences after the revival of letters. Much stress has 
been laid upon the invention of printing, and the discovery of 
America, which tended to rouse the minds of men to a new 
life. Much has been said of the fermenting political discon- 
tents of the day, the influence of the great Councils in dimin- 
ishing the authority of the Pope, and much has been made, in 
general, of the causes whose root is either wholly or in part 
in the earth. The Rationalist represents the Reformation as a 
triumph of reason over authority. The Infidel says, that its 
power was purely negative ; it was a grand subversion ; it was 
mightier than Rome, because it believed less than Rome ; it 
prevailed, not by what it taught, but by what it denied; and 
it failed of universal triumph simply because it did not deny 
everything. The insect-minded sectarian allows the Reforma- 
tion very little merit except as it prepared the way for the 
putting forth, in due time, of the particular twig of Protest- 
antism on which he crawls, and which he imagines bears all 
the fruit, and gives all the value to the tree. As the little 
green tenants of the rose-bush might he supposed to argue 
that the rose was made for the purpose of furnishing them 
a home and food, so these small speculators find the root of 
the Reformation in the particular part of Providence which 
they consent to adopt and patronize. The Reformation, as 
they take it, originated in the divine plan for furnishing a 
nursery for sectarian Aphides. 

But we must have causes which, however feeble, are adapted 



6 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

to the effects. A little fire indeed kindleth a great matter, 
but however little, it must be genuine fire. Frost will not do, 
and a painting of flame will not do, though the pencil of 
Raphael produced it. A little hammer may break a great 
rock, but that which breaks must be harder and more tena- 
cious than the thing broken. There must be a hand to apply 
the fire, and air to fan it ; it must be rightly placed within 
the material to be kindled ; it must be kept from being smoth- 
ered. And yet all aids do but enable it to exercise its own 
nature, and it alone kindles. There must be a hand to wield 
the hammer, and a heart to move the hand ; the rock must 
be struck with vigor, but the hammer itself is indispensable. 
God used instruments to apply the fire and wield the hammer ; 
His providence prepared the way for the burning and the 
breaking. And yet there was but one agency, by which they 
could be brought to pass. Do we ask what was the agency 
which was needed to kindle the flame ? What was it, that 
was destined to give the stroke whose crash filled earth with 
wonder, and hell with consternation, and heaven with joy ? 
God himself asks the question, so that it becomes its own 
answer : " Is not My Word like as a fire ? Is not My Word 
like the hammer which breaks the rock in pieces ? " 

It is not without an aim that the Word of God is presented 
in the language we have just quoted, under two images ; as 
fire and as a hammer. The fire is a type of its inward effi- 
cacy; the hammer, of its outward work. The one image 
shows how it acts on those who admit it, the other how it 
effects those who harden themselves against it ; the one sym- 
bolizes the persuasive fervor of that Word by which it makes 
our hearts burn within us in love to the Son of God, the other 
is an image of the energy with which, in the hands of the 
King on the holy hill of Zion, it breaks the opposers as with 
a rod of iron. The fire symbolizes the energy of the Word 
as a Gospel, which draws the heart to God, the hammer sha- 
dows forth its energy as a law which reveals the terrors of 
God's justice against transgressors. In both these grand 
aspects the Word of God was the creator of the Reformation 
and its mightiest instrument. It aroused the workers, and 



THE BIBLE IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 7 

fitted them for their work ; it opened blind eyes, and subdued 
stubborn hearts. The Reformation is its work and its trophy. 
However manifold the occasions of the Reformation, the 
Word, under God, was its cause. 

The Word of God kindled the fire of the Reformation. 
That Word lay smouldering under the ashes of The Bible in 
centuries; it broke forth into flame, in Luther the Middle Age8 - 
and the other Reformers ; it rendered them lights which 
shone and burnt inextinguishably ; through them it imparted 
itself to the nations ; and from the nations it purged away the 
dross which had gathered for ages. " The Word of God," 
says St. Paul, "is not bound." Through the centuries which 
followed the corruption of Christianity, the Word of God was 
still in being. In lonely cloisters it was laboriously copied. 
Years were sometimes spent in finishing a single copy of it, 
in the elaborate but half barbaric beauty which suited the 
taste of those times. Gold and jewels, on the massive covers, 
decorated the rich workmanship ; costly pictures were painted 
as ornaments on its margin ; the choicest vellum was used for 
the copies ; the rarest records of heathen antiquity were some- 
times erased to make way for the nobler treasures of the Ora- 
cles of the Most High. There are single copies of the Word, 
from that mid-world of history, which are a store of art, and 
the possession of one of which gives a bibliographical renown 
to the city in whose library it is preserved. 

No interdict was yet laid upon the reading of the Word, 
for none was necessary. The scarcity and costliness of books 
formed in themselves a barrier more effectual than the in- 
terdict of popes and councils. Many of the great teachers 
in the Church of Rome were devoted students of the Bible. 
From the earliest writings of the Fathers, down to the Refor- 
mation, there is an unbroken line of witnesses for the right 
of all believers freely to read the Holy Scriptures. No man 
thought of putting an artificial limitation on its perusal ; on 
the contrary, there are expressions of regret in the mediaeval 
Catholic writers that, in the nature of the case, so few could 
have access to these precious records. 

In communities separate from the Church of Rome, the 



8 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

truth was maintained by reading and teaching the Holy Scrip- 
tures. The Albigensian and Waldensian martyrs, were mar- 
tyrs of the Word : 

" Those slaughtered saints whose bones 
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold, 
Even those who kept God's truth so pure of old, 
When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones." 

The invention of printing, and hardly less, the invention of 
paper made from rags — ■ for what would printing he worth, 
if we were still confined to so costly a material for books as 
parchment — prepared the way for the diffusion of the Scrip- 
tures. 

The Church of Rome did not apprehend the danger which 
lay in that Book. Previous to the Reformation there were 
not only editions of the Scripture in the originals, but the old 
Church translation into Latin (the Yulgate) and versions from 
it into the living languages were printed. In Spain, whose 
dark opposition to the Word of God has since become her 
reproach and her curse, and in which no such book as the one 
of which we are about to speak has come forth for centuries, 
in Spain, more than a hundred years before there was enough 
Hebrew type in all England to print three consecutive lines, 
the first great Polyglot Bible, in Hebrew, Chaldee, Greek, 
and Latin, was issued at Complutum under the direction of 
Ximenes, her renowned cardinal and chief minister of state. 
It came forth in a form which, in splendor and value, far sur- 
passed all that the world had yet seen. We may consider the 
Complutensian Polyglot, the crown of glory to the labors of 
the Middle Ages. It links itself clearly in historical connec- 
tion with the Grand Biblical Era, the Reformation itself, 
for though the printing of it was begun in 1502, and finished 
in 1517, it was not published till 1522, and in 1522, the first 
edition of the New Testament, in German, came from the 
hand of Luther, fixing the corner-stone of the grand edifice, 
whose foundation had been laid in the Ninety-five Theses of 
1517. 

This, then, is the historical result of the facts we have pre- 



WHERE THE BIBLE FELL OPEN. 9 

sen ted, that the Middle Ages became, in the wonderful provi- 
dence of God, the conservators of the Word which they are 
charged with suppressing ; and were unconsciously tending 
toward the sunrise of the truth, which was to melt away 
their mists forever. 

The earliest efforts of the press were directed to the multi- 
plication of the copies of the Word of God. The where the bm 6 
first book ever printed, was the Bible. Before the fel1 open ' 
first twelve sheets of this first edition of the Scriptures were 
printed, Gutenberg and Faust had incurred an expenditure 
of four thousand florins. That Bible was the edition of the 
Latin Yulgate, commonly known by the name of the " Maza- 
rin Bible," from the fact that a copy of it which for some 
time was the only one known, was discovered about the mid- 
dle of the eighteenth century in the Library of the College of 
the Four Nations, founded at Paris by Cardinal Mazarin. 
At Mentz and Cologne, the Yulgate translation of the Holy 
Scriptures was multiplied in editions of various sizes. Some 
of these Latin Bibles had been purchased for the University 
Library at Erfurth at a large price, and were rarely shown 
even to visitors. One of them was destined to play a memor- 
able part in the history of mankind. While it was lying in 
the still niche of the Library, there moved about the streets 
of the city and through the halls of the University, a student 
of some eighteen years of age, destined for the law, who 
already gave evidence of a genius which might have been a 
snare to indolence, but who devoted himself to study with an 
unquenchable ardor. Among the dim recesses of the Library, 
he was a daily seeker for knowledge. His was a thirst for 
truth which was not Satisfied with the prescribed routine. 
Those books of which we now think as venerable antiques, 
were then young and fresh — the glow of novelty was on 
much of which we now speak as the musty and worm-eaten 
record of old-time wisdom which we have outgrown. There 
the city of Harlem, through Laurentius, and the city of Mentz, 
through Faustus, and the city of Strasburg, through Guten- 
berg, put in their silent claims for the glory of being the cra- 
dle of the magic art of printing. There the great masters in 



10 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION, 

jurisprudence and in scholastic philosophy challenged, and 
not in vain, the attention of the young searcher for knowl- 
edge. Some of the most voluminous of the Jurisconsults he 
could recite almost word for word. Occam and Gerson were 
his favorites among the scholastics. The masters of the clas- 
sic world, Cicero, Virgil and Livy, " he read," says a Jesuit 
author, " not merely as a student whose aim was to under- 
stand them, hut as a superior intellect, which sought to draw 
from them instruction, to find in them counsels and maxims 
for his after life. They were to him the flowers whose sweet 
odor might he shed upon the path he had to tread, or might 
calm the future agitation of his mind and of his heart." Thus 
passing from volume to volume, seeking the solution of the 
dark problem of human life, which already gathered heavily 
upon his deep, earnest soul, he one day took down a ponderous 
volume hitherto unnoticed. He opens it ; the title-page is 
" Biblia Sacra" — the Holy Bible. He is disappointed. He 
has heard all this, he thinks, in the lessons of the Missal, in 
the texts of the Postils, in the selections of the Breviary. He 
imagines that his mother, the Church, has incorporated the 
whole Book of God in her services. Listlessly he allows the 
volume to fall open at another place, in his hand, and carelessly 
looks down at the page. What is it that arouses him ? His 
eye kindles with amazement and intense interest. He rests 
the Book on the pile of the works of Schoolmen and of Fathers 
which he has been gathering. He hangs entranced over it; 
his dreamy eyes are fixed on the page ; hour after hour flies ; 
the shades of night begin to gather, and he is forced to lay 
the volume aside, with the sigh, 0, that this Book of books 
might one day be mine ! 

Was it accident, or was it of God, that this Book opened 
where it did ? Could we have arranged the providence, where 
would we have had the Book to open ? It opened at the first 
chapter of First Samuel, the simple story of Hannah conse- 
crating her boy to the Lord. There are many parts of the 
Bible as precious as this ; with reverence we speak it, there 
are some more precious, " for one star diftereth. from another 
star in glory," though God made them all. Why opened not 



WHERE THE BIBLE FELL OPEN. 11 

that Book at some of the most glorious revelations of the New 
Testament ? This might have been, and who shall say what 
incalculable loss it might have wrought to the world, had it 
been so ? For this very portion might have been one of the 
Epistles, or Gospels, or Lessons of the Romish Service, and thus 
might have confirmed the false impression of the young man 
that he already knew all the Bible. This was a critical period 
of Luther's life. Already was his mind tending to an absorp- 
tion in studies which would have given a wholly different cast 
to his life. The sound of a drum upon the street was the 
turning point of the spiritual life of an English nobleman. It 
lifted him from his knees, and drew him again into the full 
march upon everlasting death. On what little things may 
God have been pleased to hang the great impulses of the man, 
who proved himself capable of leading the Reformation, and 
who, but for these little things, might have been lost to the 
world. Nothing in God's hand is trifling. The portion on 
which Luther's eye fell was not in the Church Service. It 
quickened him at once with a new sense of the fulness of God's 
Word. In a double sense it stood before him, as a revelation. 
His eyes were opened on the altar of that inextinguishable 
fire, from which a few sparks had risen into the Romish 
Ritual, and had drifted along on the night-breezes of the ages. 
Did the angel of the Covenant with invisible hand open that 
page, or was it a breath of air from some lattice near at hand? 
It matters not — God opened the Book. 

That Book was to Luther, henceforth, the thing of beauty 
of his life, the joy of his soul forever. He read and re-read, 
and prayed over its sacred teachings, till the place of each pas- 
sage, and all memorable passages in their places fixed them- 
selves in his memory. To the study of it, all other study 
seemed tame. A single passage of it would ofttimes lie in his 
thoughts days and nights together. The Bible seemed to fuse 
itself into his being, to become a part of his nature. Often in 
his writings he does not so much remark upon it, as catch its 
very pulse and clothe his own mind in its very garb. He is 
lifted to the glory of the reproducer — and himself becomes a 
secondary prophet and apostle. His soul ceased to be a mere 



Luther's Bible. 



12 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

vessel to hold a little of the living water, and became a foun- 
tain through which it sprang to refresh and gladden others. 
As with Luther, so was it with Melanchthon, his noble co- 
worker, with Zwingle in Switzerland, at a later period with 
Calvin in France, with Tyndale and Cranmer in England, with 
Knox in Scotland. The Word of God was the fire in their 
souls which purified them into Christians — and the man who 
became a Christian was already unconsciously a Reformer. 
The fire which the Word of God kindled in the Reformers 
they could not long conceal. "They believed — 
therefore they spoke." One of the first, as it was 
one of the greatest, revelations of the revived power. of the Word 
of God, was, that it sought an audience for itself before the peo- 
ple, in their own language. Every new Pentecost revives the 
miracle and wonder of the first Pentecost : men marvelling, say 
of the apostles to whom the Holy Ghost has again given utter- 
ance : " We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonder- 
ful works of God." Foremost in this imperishable work of the 
Sixteenth Century, was the man who was first and chief in 
more works, and in greater ones, than ever fell to any of our 
race, in the ordinary vocation of God. Great monuments has 
the Sixteenth Century left us of the majesty revealed by the 
human mind, when its noblest powers are disciplined by study, 
and sanctified by the Spirit of God. Great are the legacies of 
doctrinal, polemical, historical and confessional divinity which 
that century has left us. Immortal are its confessions, its de- 
votional, practical, hymnological and liturgical labors. It was 
the century of Melanchthon's Loci and of Calvin's Institutes, 
of the Examen of Chemnitz, and the Catalogus Testium of 
Flaccius, and of the Magdeburg Centuries. Its confessions are 
still the centres of "great communions, its hymns are still sung 
by devout thousands, its forms still mould the spirit of wor- 
ship among millions. But its grandest achievement was the 
giving of the Bible to the nations, and the centre and throne 
of this achievement is Luther's Translation of the Bible, the 
greatest single work ever accomplished by man in the de- 
partment of theological literature. The Word of God, in 
whole or in part, has been translated into several hundred of 



LUTHER'S BIBLE. 13 

the dialects of our race. Many of these translations, as for ex- 
ample the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and our own authorized 
version, have great historical significance ; hut in its historical 
connections and significance, Luther's is incomparably most 
important of all. Had it been his sole labor, the race could 
never forget his name. 

Never were a greater need and the fittest agent to meet it, 
so brought together as in the production of this translation. 
One of the earliest convictions of Luther was, the people must 
have the Bible, and to this end it must be translated. It is 
true, that beginning with the Gothic translation of Ulphilas, 
in the fourth century, there had been various translations of 
the Scriptures into the Germanic tongues. About 1466, ap- 
peared the first Bible, printed in German. It came from the 
press of Eggesteyn, in Strasburg, (not as has been frequently 
maintained, from the press of Faust and Schoflfer, in 1462.) 
Between the appearance of this Bible and that of Luther, there 
were issued in the dialect of Upper Germany some fourteen 
editions of the "Word of God, beside several in the dialect of 
Lower Germany. These were, without exception, translations 
of a translation ; they were made from the Vulgate, and, how- 
ever they may have differed, they had a common character 
which may be expressed in a word — they were abominable. 
In a copy of one of them, in the library of the writer of this 
article, there is a picture of the Deluge, in which mermaids 
are floating around the ark, arranging their tresses with the 
aid of small looking-glasses, with a most amphibious non- 
chalance. The rendering is about as true to the idea, as the 
picture is to nature. There is another of these editions, re- 
markable for typographical errors, which represents Eve, not 
as a house-wife, but as a " kiss-wife," and its typography is 
the best part of it. How Luther raised what seemed a bar- 
barous jargon into a language, which, in flexible beauty, 
and power of internal combination, has no parallel but in the 
Greek, and in massive vigor* no superior but the English, 
writers of every school, Protestant and Romish alike, have 
loved to tell. The language of Germany has grown since 
Luther, but it has had no new creation. He who takes up Lu- 



14 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ther's Bible grasps a whole world in his hand — a world which 

will perish only, when this green earth itself shall pass away. 

In all lands in which the battle of the Reformation was 

fought, the Bible furnished banner, armor, and 

The omy Rule. armg ^ j t wag ^ i n< ^ eec i ^ m0 re than ensign, more than 

shield, more than sword, for " the Word of God is quick and 
powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to 
the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and 
marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the 
heart." The Word of God opened the eyes of the Reformers 
to the existing corruptions ; it called them forth from Babylon ; 
it revealed to them the only source of healing for the sick and 
wounded Church ; it inspired them with ardor for their holy 
work ; it lifted them above the desire for man's favor, and the 
fear of man's face. The Bible made them confessors, and pre- 
pared them to be martyrs. 

The Reformers knew where their strength lay. They felt 
that what had redeemed them could alone redeem the Church. 
They saw that, under God, their ability to sustain their cause 
depended on His Word. The supreme, and absolute authority 
of God's Word in determining all questions of doctrine and of 
duty, is a fundamental principle of the Reformation — a prin- 
ciple so fundamental, that without it, there would have been 
no Reformation — and so vital, that a Reformation without it, 
could such a Reformation be supposed, would have been at 
best a glittering delusion and failure. 

It is true, that there was testimony from human sources, 
which was not without value, in its right place, in the con- 
troversy with Rome. In a certain sense, her condemnation 
had already been anticipated by her own lips. In the long- 
gone days of her purity, the Church of Rome had men of God, 
who held to the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. Thirty years 
after our Lord's Ascension, St. Paul wrote to the Church of 
Rome, " I am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye also are 
full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish 
one another. Your obedience is come abroad unto all men." 
This glorious condition did not pass away speedily. There 
were generations following, in which the truth was kept com- 



THE ONLY RULE. 15 

paratively pure. Papal Rome could no more stand before the 
judgment of the early writers in the Church of Rome yet un- 
defiled than she could before the Scriptures. Hence, the con- 
fessors declared* that, in their doctrine, there not only was 
nothing in conflict with the Holy Scriptures, and with the 
true Church Catholic, or Church Universal, but nothing in 
conflict with the teachings of the true Church of Rome, as her 
doctrines were set forth by the writers of the earlier ages. 
The quotations made from these Fathers, in the Confession, 
best illustrate the meaning of this declaration, and prove its 
truth. Thus, for example, they quote the Mcene Fathers, as 
witnesses to the doctrine of the Trinity ; Ambrose is cited to 
show, u that he that believeth in Christ, is saved, without 
works, by faith alone, freely receiving remission." In the ar- 
ticles on Abuses, the testimony of the purer Fathers and Coun- 
cils is used with great effect. 

But not because of the testimony of the Church and of its 
writers did the Reformers hold the truth they confessed. They 
knew that individual churches could err, and had erred griev- 
ously, that the noblest men were fallible. Nothing but the 
firm word of God sufficed for them. 

They thanked God, indeed, for the long line of witnesses 
for the truth of His Word. "Within the Church of Rome, in 
the darkest ages, there had been men faithful to the truth. 
There were men, in the midst of the dominant corruption, 
who spake and labored against it. There were Protestants, 
ages before our princes made their protest at Spires, and 
Lutherans, before Luther was born. But not on these, though 
they sealed the truth with their own blood, did the Reformers 
lean. They joyfully used them as testimony, but not as 
authority. They placed them in the box of the witness, not 
on the bench of the judge. Their utterances, writings, and 
acts were not to be the rule of faith, but were ' themselves to 
be weighed in its balance. In God was their trust, and His 
Word alone was their stay. 

When the great princes and free cities of our Church at 
Augsburg, in 1530, laid their Confession before the Emperor 

* Augs. Confess. 47 : 1. 



16 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

and potentates, civil and ecclesiastical, of the realm, they said: 
" We offer the Confession of the faith held hy the pastors and 
preachers in our several estates, and the Confession of our 
own faith, as drawn from the Holy Scriptures, the pure Word of 
God"* That Confession repeatedly expresses, and in every 
line implies that the Word of God is the sole rule of faith and 
of life. The same is true of the Apology or Defence of the 
Confession by Melanchthou, which appeared in the following 
year, and which was adopted hy the larger part of our Church 
as expressing correctly her views, f Seven years later, the 
articles of Smalcald were prepared by Luther, for presentation 
at a general council, as an expression of the views of our 
Church. In this he says : X " JS~ot from the works or words 
of the Fathers are articles of faith to be made. We have 
another rule, to wit : that God's Word shall determine arti- 
cles of faith — and, beside it, none other — no, not an angel 
even." 

Half a century after the Augsburg Confession had gone 
forth on its sanctifying mission, our Church in Germany, in 
order that her children might not mistake her voice amid the 
bewildering conflicts of theological strife, which necessarily 
followed such a breaking up of the old modes of human 
thought as was brought about by the Reformation, set forth 
her latest and amplest Confession. This Confession, with refer- 
ence to the harmony it was designed to subserve, and under 
God did largely subserve, was called the Formula of Concord. 
That document opens with these words : " We believe, teach, 
and confess that the only rule and law, by which all teachings 
and all teachers are to be estimated and judged, is none other 
whatsoever than the writings of the prophets and the apostles, 
alike of the Old and of the New Testament, as it is written : 
1 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path ; ' 
and St. Paul saith (Gal. 1:8): ' Though we, or an angel from 
heaven, preach any other Gospel unto you, than that which 
we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.' " 

" All other writings," it continues, " whether of the Fathers, 
or of recent authors, be their name what they may, are by no 

* A. C. Prsefat. 8. f Apol. Con. 284 : 60. % 303 : 15. 



PROVIDENCE AND THE WORD. 17 

means whatsoever to be likened to Holy Scripture ; but are, 
in such sense, to be subjected to it, as to be received in none 
other way than as witnesses, which show how and where, 
after the apostles' times, the doctrines of the apostles and 
prophets were preserved." " We embrace," say our confessors, 
"the Augsburg Confession, not because it was written by 
our theologians, but because it was taken from God's "Word, 
and solidly built on the foundation of Holy Scripture." 

With equal clearness do the other Churches of the Reforma- 
tion express themselves on this point. 

If, then, the Reformers knew the movements of their own 
minds, it was God's Word, and it alone, which made them con- 
fessors of the truth. And it is a fundamental principle of the 
Reformation, that God's word is the sole and absolute author- 
ity, and rule of faith, and of life, a principle without accept- 
ing which, no man can be truly Evangelical, Protestant, or 
Lutheran. 

Fire not only makes bright and burning the thing it kin- 
dles, but gives to it the power of impartation ; TheProvidence 
whatever is kindled, kindles again. From the of God and His 
Reformers, the fire spread to the people ; and from together in the 
cold and darkness the nations seemed to struggle Reformation - 
upward, as by a common touch from heaven, in flames of holy 
sacrifice ; and here, too, the Word showed its divine power. 

We acknowledge, indeed, with joyous hearts, that God had 
prepared all things wondrously, for the spread of the flame 
of the truth. In Germany, the fire was to burst forth, which 
was to spread to the ends of the earth. "In no event in the 
history of mankind does the movement of Divine Providence 
present itself more unmistakably, than in the Reformation in 
Germany." * The time, the place, the circumstances, the con- 
dition of the religious and of the political world, were in won- 
derful unison. They worked with each other, compensating 
each other's weaknesses, and helping each other's power, so as 
to give a sure foundation, a firm hold, a healthy direction, a 
high purity, a mighty protection, a wide-spread recognition, a 
swift and joyous progress, an abiding issue to the glorious 

*Dr. H. Kurtz, K. G. 3 211. 



18 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

work. The soul of the best men of the time was alive to the 
wretched condition into which the Church had fallen. A pro- 
found longing for the Reformation filled the hearts of nations ; 
science, literature, art, discovery, and invention were elevating 
Europe, and preparing the way for the triumphal march of 
pure religion, the queen of all knowledge. In the Papal chair 
sat Leo X., a lover of art and literature, careless and indolent 
in all things else. Over the beautiful plains of Germany wan- 
dered Tetzel, senseless and impudent, even beyond the class to 
which he belonged, exciting the disgust of all thinking men, 
by the profligate manner in which he sold indulgences. To 
protect the trembling flame of the truth from the fierce winds, 
which, at first, would have extinguished it ; to protect it till 
the tornado itself should only make it blaze more vehemently, 
God had prepared Frederick, the Wise, a man of immense 
influence, universally revered, and not more revered than his 
earnest piety, his fidelity, his eminent conscientiousness de- 
served. The Emperor Charles V., with power enough to 
quench the flame with a word, with a hatred to it which seemed 
to make it certain that he would speak that word, was yet so 
fettered by the plans of his ambition, that he left it unsaid, and 
thus was made the involuntary protector of that which he 
hated. These and a thousand other circumstances were pro- 
pitious. 

But in vain is the wood gathered, and in vain do the winds 
breathe, unless the fire is applied. In vain would Luther, 
with his incomparable gifts, have risen — in vain would that 
genius, to which a Catholic writer declares Luther's own 
friends have not done full justice — in vain would that high 
courage, that stern resolve have presented themselves in the 
matchless combination in which they existed in him, had there 
Dot been first a power beyond that of man to purify him, and 
from him to extend itself in flame around him. With all 
of Luther's gifts, he might have been a monster of wickedness, 
or a slave of the dominant superstition, helping to strengthen 
its chains, and forge new ones, had not the truth of God made 
him free, had not the Spirit of God in His Word made him an 
humble and earnest believer. Luther was first a Christian, 



A LESSON FOR OUR TIME. 19 

and then a Reformer, and he became a Reformer because he 
was a Christian. " He believed, therefore he spoke." But 
Christian as he was, he could not have been a successful Re- 
former, had he not possessed the power of spreading the fire of 
Divine truth. The fatal defect in all the Reformatory move- 
ments in the councils and universities of Paris in the fifteenth 
century, was that they were not based upon the true founda- 
tion, and did not propose to attain the great end by the right 
means. The cry had been for a Reform " in the head and 
members " by outward improvement, not in the Spirit and 
through the Word. The Reformation was kindled by the 
"Word; it trusted the Word, and scattered it everywhere, 
directing attention to it in every writing, and grounding every 
position upon it. The Word soon made itself felt throughout 
all Europe. Even in the lands most thoroughly under Papal 
power, sparkles of the truth began to show themselves, as in 
Austria, Spain, and Italy. But from Wittenberg through 
Germany, from Zurich through Switzerland, the first flame 
spread, and but a few years passed ere all Europe, which is at 
this hour Protestant, had received the pure faith of the Word 
of God. 

The fire of the Divine Word destroyed the accumulated 
rubbish of tradition, swept away the hay, wood, and stubble, 
which the hand of man had gathered on the foundation and 
heaped over the temple, and the gold, silver, and precious 
stones of the true house of God appeared. The Bible, like 
sunshine bursting through clouds, poured its light upon the 
nations. The teaching of mere men ceased to be regarded as 
authority, and the prophecy was again fulfilled : " They shall 
all be taught of God." 

Three hundred and fifty -three years ago, the first thrill of 
the earthquake of the Reformation was felt in a Lesson for 
Europe. Men knew so little of its nature, that they our time " 
imagined it could be suppressed. They threw their weight 
upon the heaving earth, and hoped to make it lie still. They 
knew not that they had a power to deal with, which was 
made more terrible in its outburst by the attempt to confine 
it. As the result of the opposition to the Reformation, 



20 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Europe was made desolate. After the final struggle of the 
Thirty Years' "War, Europe seemed ruined ; its fields had been 
drenched with blood, its cities laid in ashes, hardly a family 
remained undivided, and the fiercest passions had been so 
aroused, that it seemed as if they could never be allayed. 

Yet the establishment of the work of the Eeformation has 
richly repaid Europe for all it endured. The earthquake 
has gone, the streams of desolation have been chilled, and the 
nations make a jubilee over the glorious anniversary of that 
grand movement which, by the depravity of men, was made 
the occasion of so much disturbance and misery. The evils 
of which the Eeformation was the occasion, have passed 
away. We must go to the page of history to know what 
they were. The blessings of which the Reformation was the 
cause, abide ; we feel them in our homes, in the Church, in 
the State ; they are inwoven with the life of our life. Once 
feeling them, we know that this would be no world to live in 
without them. 

And how instructive is this to us in the struggle of our day 
for the perpetuation of the truth restored by the Reformation. 
Not alone by Rome, but also by heretical or fanatical Pseudo- 
Protestants, is it still assailed — and when we see the guilty 
passions, the violence and odious spirit of misrepresentation 
excited, and feel them directed upon ourselves, we may be 
tempted to give up the struggle. But we are untrue to the 
lessons of the Reformation, if we thus yield. 

Men tremble and weep as the molten and seething elements 
make the earth quake, and pour themselves out in red and 
wasting streams. But their outbursting is essential to their 
consolidation, and to their bearing part in the work of the 
world. What was once lava, marking its track in ruin, shall 
one day lie below fair fields, whose richness it has made. The 
olive shall stay the vine, and the shadows of the foliage of 
vine and olive shall ripple over flowers ; and women and chil- 
dren, lovelier than the fruits and the flowers, shall laugh and 
sing amid them. The blessings from the upheaving of the 
heart of the world shall gladden the children of those who 
gazed on it with wo-begone eyes. Had a war of three hun- 



A LESSON FOE OUR TIME. 21 

dred years been necessary to sustain the Reformation, we now 
know the Reformation would ultimately have repaid all the 
sacrifices it demanded. Had our fathers surrendered the 
truth, even under that pressure to which ours is but a feather, 
how we would have cursed their memory, as we contrasted 
what we were with what we might have been. 

And shall we despond, draw back, and give our names to 
the reproach of generations to come, because the burden of 
the hour seems to us heavy ? God, in His mercy, forbid ! If 
all others are ready to yield to despondency, and abandon the 
struggle, we, children of the Reformation, dare not. That 
struggle has taught two lessons, which must never be forgot- 
ten. One is, that the true and the good must be secured at 
any price. They are beyond all price. We dare not compute 
their cost. They are the soul of our being, and the whole 
world is as dust in the balance against them. ~No matter 
what is to be paid for them, we must not hesitate to lay down 
their redemption price. The other grand lesson is, that their 
price is never paid in vain. What we give can never be lost, 
unless we give too little. If we give all, we shall have all. All 
shall come back. Our purses shall be in the mouths of our 
sacks. We shall have both the corn and the money. But if 
we are niggard, we lose all — lose what we meant to buy, lose 
what we have given. If we maintain the pure Word inflexibly 
at every cost, over against the arrogance of Rome and of the 
weak pretentiousness of Rationalism, we shall conquer both 
through the Word ; but to compromise on a single point, is to 
lose all, and to be lost. 



II. 

LUTHER PICTURED BY PENCIL AND PEN.* 



THE pictured life of Luther, by Konig and Gelzer, which 
alone we propose to notice at any length, is a charming book 
■ — a book with a great subject, a happy mode of treatment, 
well carried out, and combining the fascination of good pictures, 
good descriptions, and elegant typography. It is an offering 
of flowers and fruit on the altar of the greatest memory which 
the heart of modern Christianity enshrines. It is the whole 
history of Luther told in pictures, and descriptions of those 

*Dr. Martin Luther der Deutsche Reformator. In bildlichen Darstellungen 
von Gustav Konig. In geschichtlichen Umrissen von Heinrich Gelzer. Ham- 
burg: Rudolf Besser. Gotha : Justus Perthes. 1851. [Dr. Martin Luther the 
German Reformer. In pictorial representations, and historical sketches.] 4to. 
(In English, Lond. : 1853.) (With Introduction by T. Stork, D.D. Philada. : 1854.) 

Audin : Histoire de M. Luther. Nouv. ed. Louvain. : 1845. 2 vols. 8vo. 
(Transl. into English, Phila. : 1841. 8vo. London : 1854. 2 vols. 8vo.) 

Bower: Life of Luther. (1813.) Philada. : 1824. 8vo. 

Cochl^us: Historia M. Lutheri. (1559.) Ingolst. : 1582. 4to. 

Engelhard: Lucifer Wittenberg. Leb. Lauf Catherinae v. Bore.) 1747. 12mo. 

Fabricius : Centifolium Lutheranum. Hamb. : 1728. 

Hunnius, N. : Off. Bew. d. D. M. L. zu Ref. beruffen. n. Apologia Olearii. 
Leipz. : 1666. 12mo. 

Juncker : Guld. u. Silb. Ehren. Ged. D. Mart. Luth. Frankf. u. Leipz.: 1706. 8vo. 

Jurgens: Luther's Leben. Leipz.: 1846. 3 vols. 8vo. 

Kretjssler: D. M. L.'s Andenk. in Miinzer. Leipz.: 1818. 8vo. 

Labouohere: Illustr. of the Life of Martin Luther. (D'Aubigne\) Philada. 
Luth. Board: 1869. 4to. (Photographs.— A beautiful book.) 

Ledderhose : M. L. n. s. aussern u. innern Leben. Speyer. : 1836. 8vo. 

Luther: Briefe. De Wette. Berl. : 1826 seq. 6 vols. 8vo. 

11 Concordanz d. Ansicht. etc. Darmst. : 1827-31. 4 vols. 8vo. 

" Opera. Erlangen: 1829 seq. Jena: 1556. Wittenb. : 1545-58. 

22 



LUTHER'S CHILDHOOD. 23 

pictures, followed by a connected sketch of the Reformation 
as it centred in him. 

The work contains forty-eight engravings, divided, with ref- 
erence to the leading events of his life, or the Luther - S chnd _ 
great features of his character, into seven parts. hood - 
The first division embraces the years of his childhood — and, not 
uncharacteristically of the German origin of the book, pre- 
sents us as a first picture Martio Luther (such we must here 
call him by anticipation) on the night of " his birth, 11 o'clock, 
November 10th, 1483." Speaking of Luther's birth, Carlyle 
says : " In the whole world, that day, there was not a more 
entirely unimportant-looking pair of people, than this miner 
and his wife. And yet what were all Emperors, Popes, and 
Potentates, in comparison ? There was born here, once more, 
a Mighty Man ; whose light was to flame as the beacon over 
long centuries and epochs of the world ; the whole world and 
its history was waiting for this man. It is strange, it is great. 
It leads us back to another Birth-hour, in a still meaner en- 
vironment, eighteen hundred years ago — of which it is fit 

Luther: Werke. Altenburg: 1661. Erlangen : 1826 seq. (2d ed. Frankf. 
a. M. : 1869 seq.) Halle (Walch.) : 1740-52. Leipzig : 1729-34. Wittenberg: 
1539-59. 

Luther : Table Talk. Hazlitt. Luth. Board Public, Philada. : 1868. 

Mathesius : Dr. M. L. Leben. In XVII. Predigt. (1565.) Berlin: 1862. 

Melanchthon: Vita et Act. Lutheri. (1546.) Ed. Forstemann. Nordhau- 
sen: 1846. 8vo. . 

Melanchthon: Aus d. Lateinischen. (Mayer.) Wittenb. : 1847. 

Meurer : Luthers Leben a. d. Quellen. 2d edit. Dresden : 1852. 8vo. 

Morris, J. G. : Quaint Sayings and Doings concerning Luther. Philada. : 
1859. 

Muller : Lutherus Defensus. Hamb. : 1658. 12nio. 

Niemeyer, C. H. : M. L. n. s. Leben u. Wirken. Halle: 1817. 8vo. 

Scott : Luther and the L. Reformation. New York : 1833. 2 vols. 12mo. 

Sears : Life of Luther. Am. S. S. Un. 

Stang : M. L. s. Leben u. Wirken. Stuttg. 1835. 4to. 

Ukert: L.'s Leben, mit d. Literat. Gotha: 1817. 8vo. 

Ulenberg : Gesch. d. Lutherischer Reformatoren. Dr. M. Luther, &c. Mainz : 
1836. 2 vols. 8vo. 

Weiser: Life of Luther. Balto. : 1853. 

Wieland: Charakteristik. D. M. L. Chemnitz: 1801. 12mo. 

Zimmermann, E. : Luther's Leben. in Reformat. Schriften D. M. L. Darm- 
Btadt: 1846-1849. 4 vols. 8vo. 



24 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

that we say nothing, that we think only in silence ; for what 
words are there ! The Age of Miracles past ? The Age of 
Miracles is forever here ! " * In the second picture, Master 
Martin is brought to school, to a terrible-looking school- 
master, with a bundle of rods in his hand, and with a boy 
whom you can almost hear sobbing, crouching at the back 
of his chair. In the third, wandering with his little com- 
rades, he comes, singing, to the door of Madame Cotta in 
Eisenach, (1498.) In a little niche below, his gentle protect- 
ress brings him his lute, to win him for a while from his books. 
The second division leads us over his youth, in seven illus- 
trations. In the first, Luther is seen in the Li- 
Luther's Youth. T . 'ip-rip 

brary of the University ot Lriurt, gazing eagerly, 
for the first time, on the whole Bible — his hand unconsciously 
relaxing on a folio Aristotle, as he reads, (1501.) Next, the 
Providence is smiting, together with the Word. His friend 
Alexis, as they journey, falls dead at his side, by a thunderstroke. 
Then follows the step of a fearful heart. With sad face, and 
with the moon, in her first quarter, beaming on him like that 
faith which was yet so far from the full ; with his heathen 
poets beneath his arm, he takes the hand of the monk who 
welcomes him to the cloister of the Augustinian Eremites, 
(1505.) Next the monk receives the solemn consecration to 
the priesthood, and now with the tonsure, the cowl and the 
rosary, barefooted, with the scourge by his side, he agonizes, 
with macerated body and bleeding heart, at the foot of the 
crucifix. We turn a leaf — he lies in his cell, like one dead — 
he has swooned over the Bible, which he now never permits 
to leave his hand. The door has been burst open, and his 
friends bring lutes, that they may revive him by the influence 
of the only power which yet binds him to the world of sense. 
Now a ray of light shoots in : the Spirit chafing in the body 
has brought him hard by the valley of death ; but an old 
brother in the Cloister, by one word of faith gives him power 
to rise from his bed of sickness, and clasp his comforter around 
the neck. With this touching scene, ends this part. 

* On Heroes and Hero-Worship — or Six Lectures by Thomas Carlyle — New 
York, 1849, p. 114. 



LUTHER AT THE UNIVERSITY. 25 

In the third period, we have illustrations of Luther's career 
at the University of Wittenberg. As a Bachelor L uther at the 
of Arts he is holding philosophical and theo- Universit - V - 
logical prelections, (1508.) Then we have him preaching in 
the Cloister before Staupitz, and the other brethren of his order, 
as a preliminary to appearing in the Castle and City church. 
Luther's journey to Rome (1510) is shown in four pictures 
grouped on one page. In the first he is starting eagerly on his 
journey to the " holy city " — in the second, at first view of that 
home of martyrs hallowed by their blood, and not less by the 
presence of the vicar of Christ and vicegerent of God, he falls 
upon his knees, in solemn awe and exultation ; in the centre, he 
is gazing on the proud and godless Pope Julius, riding with pam- 
pered cardinals in his train — and in the last, he looks back, and 
waves over that city the hand whose bolts in after time seemed 
mighty enough to sink it to that realm — over which, its own 
inhabitants told him, if there was a hell, Rome was certainly 
built.* " To conceive of Luther's emotions on entering Rome, 
we must remember that he was a child of the north, who loved 
privation and fasting — who was of a meditative nature, and 
had vowed to the cross of Christ an austere worship. His 
Christianity was of a severe and rigid character. When he 
prayed it was on the stone ; the altar before which he knelt 
was almost invariably of wood ; his church was time-worn, 
and the chasuble of its ministers of coarse wool. Imagine, 
then, this monk — this poor Martin, who walked twelve hun- 
dred miles, with nothing to support him but coarse bread ; 
think of him suddenly transported to the midst of a city of 
wonders, of pleasure, of music, and of pagan antiquity. What 
must have been his feelings : he who had never heard any 
greater sound than was made by the falling water of the con- 
vent fountain — who knew no recreation beyond that of his 
lute, when prayers were over, and who knew no ceremony 
more imposing than the induction of an Augustinian monk — 
how must he have been astonished, even scandalized I He had 
fancied to himself an austere religion — its brow encircled with 

* "So hab ich selbs zu Kom gehort sagen: ist eine Holle, so ist Rom darauf 
gebaut." 



26 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

care, its ministers lying on the hard ground, sating their thirst 
at heavenly founts, dressed as were the Apostles, and treading 
on stony paths with the Everlasting Gospel in their hands. 
In place of this he saw cardinals borne in litters, or on horse- 
back, or in carriages, their attire blazing with jewels, their 
faces shaded by canopies, or the plumes of the peacock, and 
marking their route by clouds of dust so dense as completely 
to veil and hide their attendants. His dreams reverted to 
those days, when the chief of the Apostles, a pilgrim like 
himself, had only a staff to support his weakness. The poor 
scholar, who, in his childhood, had endured so much, and who 
often pillowed his head on the cold ground, now passes before 
palaces of marble, alabaster columns, gigantic granite obelisks, 
sparkling fountains, villas adorned with gardens, cascades and 
grottos ! Does he wish to pray? He enters a church, which 
appears to him a little world ; where diamonds glitter on the 
altar, gold upon the ceiling, marble in the columns, and mo- 
saic in the chapels. In his own country, the rustic temples 
are ornamented by votive flowers laid by some pious hand 
upon the altar. Is he thirsty ? Instead of one of those springs 
that flow through the wooden pipes of "Wittenberg, he sees 
fountains of white marble, as large as German houses. Is he 
fatigued with walking ? He finds on his road, instead of a 
modest wooden seat, some antique, just dug up, on which he 
may rest. Does he look for a holy image ? He sees nothing 
but the fantasies of paganism, old deities — still giving em- 
ployment to thousands of sculptors. They are the gods of 
Demosthenes, and of Praxiteles; the festivals and processions 
of Delos ; the excitement of the forum ; in a word, pagan folly: 
but of the foolishness of the Cross, which St. Paul extols, he 
appears nowhere to see either memorial or representation."* 
These are the concessions, and this the apology of a Poman 
Catholic historian, and we permit them to pass together. 
After his return we see Luther with high solemnities created 
Doctor of the Holy Scriptures, Carlstadt as Dean of the Theo- 
logical Faculty, officiating at his promotion, (1512.) The close 
of this era leaves Luther busy in dictating letters, and per- 

* Audin's Life of Luther. 



THE REFORMATION IN ITS RISE. 27 

forming the functions of "a Vicar-General of the Augustinian 
Order," with which he had heen intrusted by Staupitz, (1516.) 
By this office he was fitted for that part which he took in 
giving form to the Church when it ere long began to renew 
its youth like the eagle's. 

"We come now to the Eeformation itself, (1517,) the warning 
flash, the storm, and the purified heaven that The Reforma . 
followed it. This period is embraced in sixteen tion in its rise - 
principal pictures, with seven subsidiary ones on a smaller 
scale. 

The first of these grouped pictures presents four scenes. Be- 
low, Luther is refusing, as the Confessor of his people, to give 
them absolution, while they exultingly display their indul- 
gences ; in the centre, Luther nails to the door of the church- 
tower the immortal theses — on the left, Tetzel sells indulgences, 
and commits Luther's writing to the flames, and on the right, 
the Wittenberg students are handling his own anti-theses in the 
same unceremonious way. The smoke from both fires rises to 
a centre above the whole, and, like the wan image in a dream, 
the swan whose white wings were waving before Huss' dying 
eyes, is lifting herself unscathed from the flames. E"ow Lu- 
ther bends before Cajetan, and then at night, "without shoe or 
stocking, spur or sword," flies on horseback through a portal 
of Augsburg. The picture that follows is one of great beauty, 
rich in portraits. It represents the dispute at Leipsic between 
Luther and Eck, (1519.) In the Hall of the Pleissenburg the 
two great chieftains face each other — the one bold, cogent, 
overwhelming — the other sly, full of lubricity, sophistical 
and watchful; the one Hercules, the other the Hydra. By Lu- 
ther's side sits Melanchthon, with the deep lines of thought 
upon his youthful face ; at their feet, Carlstadt, with a book 
in each hand, with knit brows searches for something which 
his treacherous memory has not been able to retain. In the 
centre of the court, Duke George of Saxony listens earnestly to 
the dispute, till at Luther's words, that " some Articles even 
of Huss and the Bohemians accorded with the Gospel," he in- 
voluntarily exclaimed, " The man is mad ! " At his feet sits 
the court-fool, gazing with a puzzled and earnest air at Dr. Eck, 



28 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

as though he dreaded remotely that he had in him a danger- 
ous competitor for his own office. Next we have Luther burn- 
ing the Papal bull, (1520,) then his reception at Worms, (1521.) 
These are followed by a double picture : above, Luther is pre- 
paring by prayer to appear before the Emperor and the Diet ; 
his lattice opens out upon the towers of the city, and the calm 
stars are shining upon him. It reminds us of the garden at 
Wittenberg, where, one evening at sunset, a little bird has 
perched for the night: "That little bird," says Luther — 
" above it are the stars and deep heaven of worlds ; yet it has 
folded its little wings ; gone trustfully to rest there as in 
its home.'' His lute rests by his side, his brow is turned to 
heaven and his hands clasped fervently ; below, he approaches 
the entrance to the Diet ; the knight Frundsberg lays a friendly 
hand upon his shoulder, and speaks a cheering word. In the 
angles of the ornamental border appear statues of those two 
heroes who declared themselves ready with word and sword, 
if need were, to defend at Worms their " holy friend, the un- 
conquerable Theologian and Evangelist ; " Hutten rests upon 
the harp and lifts the sword in his right hand ; his brow is 
crowned with the poet's laurel ; the brave Sickingen lifts the 
shield upon his arm, and holds in his right hand the marshal's 
staiF. Luther has entered the hall — stands before the mighty — 
and is represented at the moment when he throws his whole 
soul into that " good confession," surpassed in moral grandeur 
but by one, in the whole history of the race. " The Diet of 
Worms, Luther's appearance there on the 17th of April, 1521, 
may be considered as the greatest scene in modern European 
History ; the point, indeed, from which the whole subsequent his- 
tory of civilization takes its rise. The world's pomp and power 
sits there, on this hand: on that, stands up for God's truth, 
one man, the poor miner Hans Luther's son. Our petition — 
the petition of the whole world to him was : ' Free us ; it rests 
with thee ; desert us not.' Luther did not desert us. It is, as 
we say, the greatest moment in the Modern History of Men — 
English Puritanism, England and its Parliaments, America's 
vast work these two centuries ; French Revolution, Europe 
and its work everywhere at present: the germ of it all lay 



\ 



FANATICISM. 29 

there : had Luther in that moment done other, it had all been 
otherwise."* Next follows his arrest on the way, (1521.) 
Next, sitting in the dress of. a knight, his cap hanging on the 
head of the chair, his sword resting at its side, in a quiet 
chamber of the Thuringian castle, we see him at work on his 
translation of the Bible. But his active spirit prompts him to 
return to his former duties at any risk ; now, with his book 
resting on the pommel of his saddle, he rides away from the 
Wartburg ; meets the Swiss students at the hostelry of the Black 
Bear in Jena, who can talk about nothing but Luther, who 
sits unknown, and is recognized by them with astonishment 
when at Wittenberg they meet him in the circle of his friends. 
A new stadium is now reached in this era. The danger 
greater than all outward dangers, that which arises within 
great moral movements, now begins to display itself. From 
applying the internal remedies well calculated to eradicate the 
cause of disease, men begin to operate upon the 

n , „ . n .. ., Fanaticism. 

surface; instead of curing the leprosy, they com- 
mence scraping off its scales. The war against images in the 
churches commenced ; ; Cut, burn, break, annihilate,' was the 
cry, and the contest was rapidly changing, from a conflict with 
errors in the human heart, to an easy and useless attack on paint 
and stone. A harder struggle, than any to which he had yet 
been called, demands Luther's energy. He must defend the living 
truth from the false issues into which its friends may carry it. 
Luther arrests the storm against images. The artist places him 
in the centre of a band of iconoclasts in the temple. His hand 
and voice arrest a man who is about climbing a ladder to de- 
stroy the ornaments of the church. Near him a youth hold- 
ing a chasuble is pausing to hear ; on the floor, a peasant sus- 
pends the tearing of a missal in the middle of a page ; an older 
man, with a heap of sacred vestments beneath him and a 
broken crosier under his foot, half relaxes his hold on the 
Monstrance, and looks scowlingly around. On the extreme right 
of the picture, there is a fine contrast between the fanatical 
countenance of a man who has just lifted a heavy hammer 
against the statue of a saint, and the placid face which he is 

* Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship, p. 121. 



30 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

about to destroy. Carlstadt, with his foot propped upon the 
shoulder of a devout old bishop in stone, looks on Luther with 
an expression of impotent wrath. 

The next picture leads us to a calmer scene. Luther is in his 
Luther and quiet room. His translation of the Bible is grow- 

Meianchthon. in g i^^qq^ ki s hand. By his side, rendering invalu- 
able aid, is Melanchthon : " Still," said Luther, " in age, form, 
and mien, a youth : but in mind a man." This was the time 
of their first love, when they were perfectly of one spirit, and 
full of admiration, each of the other's wondrous gifts ; when 
Melanchthon knew no glory on earth beyond that of looking 
upon Luther as his father, and Luther's chief joy was to see 
and extol Melanchthon, (1523-24.) 

Next, as if the artist would lead us through alternate 

Luthei's mar- scenes of sunshine and tempest, we have Luther 
n:!ge ' preaching in Seeburg against the peasant war, 

(1525 ;) a noble picture crowded with varied life. Then from 
revelry, arson, and rapine, we are led into a private chapel in 
the house of the Registrar of Wittenberg. The jurist, Apel, 
and the great painter, Cranach, stand on either side ; Bugen- 
hagen blesses the plighted troth of Luther and Catherine, 
who kneel before him, she with her long hair flowing over 
her shoulders, and the marriage wreath on her brow, her face 
meekly and thoughtfully bent downward ; he holding her 
right hand in his, his left pressing on his heart, and his eyes 
turned to heaven, (June 13th, 1525.) 

From sunshine to storm — Luther's conference with Zwingle 
on the question of the Sacrament, (October 1-4, 1529.) Luther 

Luther and had redeemed the Gospel doctrine of the Supper from 
zw.ngie. ^.j ie g ross materialism and scholastic refinings of 

Rome: it was now his work to maintain it against the error 
which violent reaction had produced, a hyperspiritualizing, 
which was driven to so violent a resort as confounding the 
benefits of our Redeemer's flesh with the feebleness of our own. 
It was to save the living body of Christ himself from dissever- 
ance, to rescue the Reformation from a tendency toward Sect, 
which an easy perversion of some of its principles might cause, 
that Luther struggled. As the Protestant world has receded 



THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 31 

from the great sacramental principles which Luther main- 
tained at Marburg, just in that proportion has it been torn 
with internal dissension — and just in proportion to its return 
to them, has there risen a more earnest striving toward a 
consummation of the Saviour's prayer: that all his people 
might be one. ~No man in Luther's time, no man since, so 
harmoniously blended, so kept in their due proportion all the 
elements of a real Reformation. "Luther's character," says 
Bengel, "was truly great. All his brother Reformers to- 
gether will not make a Luther. His death was an important 
epocha ; for nothing, since it took place, has ever been really 
added to the Reformation itself." 

The artist closes this period fitly, with the delivery of the 
Augsburg Confession, (1530,) that great providen- The Augsburg 
tial act by which God, having brought to mature Confe9Slon - 
consciousness the leading doctrines of the Gospel, gave them 
currency in the whole world. Thirteen years had passed since 
the truth, like a whisper in a secret place, had been uttered at 
Wittenberg ; now it was to ring like a trumpet before the 
Emperor and his whole realm. " In sighs and prayers," writes 
Luther from Coburg, " I am by your side. If we fall, Christ 
falls with us — if He fall, rather will I fall with him than 
stand with the Emperor ; but we need not fear, for Christ 
overcometh the world." In the picture, the artist has ranged 
the Evangelical party to the right, the Romish to the left of 
the spectator: contrary to the historical fact, he has introduced 
Melanchthon, who stands most prominently, with folded arms 
and careworn face. Below him, the Elector, John the Con- 
stant, clasps his hands in silent invocation ; behind whom 
stands George, Margrave of Brandenburg, and by his side sits 
Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, bracing himself on his sword. 
In the centre sits Charles, his Spanish origin showing itself 
in his features. Back of his seat is embroidered the double- 
headed crowned eagle of the Empire. A crown with triple 
divisions, the central one of which is surmounted by a 
small cross, rests on his head — the sceptre is in his hand. 
The ermine, crosiers, mitres, cowl, and cardinal's hat mark 
the party to his right. Before him the Chancellor Baier reads 



32 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the Confession. Around the picture are thrown connected 
Gothic ornaments ; in the upper arch of which Luther is pros- 
trate in prayer. At its base an angel holds in either hand the 
coat of arms of Luther and Melanchthon, with an intertwining 
band, on which are traced the words from Luther's favorite 
Psalm : "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of 
the Lord." From the highest point, not without significance, 
rises the cross, and here this part appropriately ends. 

The Church thus fairly brought to a full self-consciousness, 

The Reforma- the fifth part, presents us, in four characteristic 

tion m its results. picturegs tlie results. In the first, Luther, with 

all his co-laborers, Christian and Jewish, around him, labors on 

that translation of which even a Jesuit historian speaks thus : 

" Luther's translation of the Bible is a noble monument of litera- 

Transiation of ture, a vast enterprise which seemed to require 

more than the life of man ; but which Luther 
accomplished in a few years. The poetic soul finds in this 
translation evidences of genius, and expressions as natural, 
beautiful and melodious as in the original languages. Luther's 
translation sometimes renders the primitive phrase with touch- 
ing simplicity, invests itself with sublimity and magnificence, 
and receives all the modifications which he wishes to impart to 
it. It is simple in the recital of the patriarch, glowing in the 
predictions of the prophets, familiar in the Gospels, and collo- 
quial in the Epistles. The imagery of the original is rendered 
with undeviating fidelity ; the translation occasionally ap- 
proaches the text. We must not then be astonished at the 
enthusiasm which Saxony felt at the appearance of Luther's 
version. Both Catholics and Protestants regarded it an honor 
done to their ancient idiom."* In the picture, Luther stands be- 
tween Bugenhagen and Melanchthon ; Jonas, Forstensius, Creu- 
ziger, and the Rabbins are engaged in the effort to solve some 
difficulty that has risen. 

The second result is shown in a scene in a school-room, 

in which the Catechism has just been introduced. 

Luther sits in the midst of the children teaching 
them the first Article of the Creed. Jonas is distributing the 

* Audin's Luther, chap. xxiv. 



LUTHER IN PRIVATE LIFE. 33 

book among them, and in the background a number of teachers 
listen that they may learn to carry out this new feature in 
their calling. 

The third result is shown in the pulpit. Luther had given 
the Bible for all ages, and all places ; he had laid The Pulpit 
primal principles at the foundation of human church service. 
thought, by introducing the Catechism into the schools ; now 
he re-creates the service of the church. In the engraving the 
artist has grouped happily, all that is associated with the 
Evangelical service. Luther, in the pulpit, is preaching to 
nobles and subjects, with all the fervor of his soul. The font 
and altar, illumined by a flood of sunbeams, recall the Sacra- 
ments ; the organ reminds us of the place which the Reforma- 
tion gave to sacred music, and the alms-box, of its appeals to 
sacred pity. The fourth picture represents the administra- 
tion of the Lord's Supper in both kinds ; Luther extends the 
cup to the Elector John Frederick, whilst Bugenhagen distrib- 
utes the bread. 

The sixth general division shows us Luther in private life. 
First we have two pictures illustrating his relations T „ 

1 ° m Luther in pri- 

to his princes. In one he is represented reading vateiife. Princes. 
from the Bible to his devoted friend, the Elector Friends - Family< 
John the Constant ; in the other, on his sick-bed, he is visited 
and comforted by the Elector John Frederick, (1537.) Secondly, 
we have him in his relations to his personal friends. In the first 
picture, Luther is sitting for his likeness, to Lucas Cranach ; in 
the next he is rousing Melanchthon almost from the torpor of 
death, by the prayer of faith ; the third, illustrating the intro- 
duction of the German church music, conducts us into Luther's 
" Chantry in the House." With his children and friends around 
him, he is giving voice to the first Evangelical hymns. The 
little choir is led by Walter, Master of the Electoral Chapel ; on 
the left stands the Chanter, on the right, Mathesius. Thirdly, 
we see him in his family. The first picture shows him in the 
enjoyment of all that imparts delight to summer — with his 
household and his most familiar friends about him. It is 
a charming scene of innocent festivity which the artist here 
brings before the eye. Under a trellis mantled with vines 



34 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

loaded with ricli clusters of grapes, the party is assembled, at 
sunset. Luther holds out his hands to his youngest child, 
who, by the aid of his mother, is tottering towards his father 
with a bunch of grapes weighing down his little hands. The 
oldest boy, mounted on a light ladder, hands down the grapes, 
which Madeleine receives in her apron. The third boy is bring- 
ing to his father a cluster remarkable for its size ; the second 
son is playing with the dog, perhaps that very dog which, 
Luther said, had "looked at many books." The ground is 
covered with melons. One of Luther's friends plays upon the 
flute, another sketches a basket of beautiful fruit ; two of them 
sit beneath the arbor, and two others wander in the garden in 
friendly converse. Through an arch in the wall the river is 
seen winding quietly along, under the last rays of the declining 
sun. What a change from the time of scourging before the 
crucifix ! 

As a counterpart to this scene, we next have Luther on 
Christmas Eve in the family circle. This is a 
picture that touches the heart. The Christ- 
mas-tides of Luther's life might indeed be considered as its 
epitome. 

Fourteen times Christmas dawned on the cradle, or on the 
sports of Luther as a peasant boy. Four times Christmas 
found the boy in the school at Magdeburg. Long years after, 
in his old age, he gave a sketch of those Christmas days. 
" At the season when the Church keeps the festival of Christ's 
birth, we scholars went through the hamlets from house to 
house, singing in quartette the familiar hymns about Jesus, 
the little child born at Bethlehem. As we were passing a 
farm -yard at the end of a village, a farmer came out, and in 
his coarse voice, offered us food. His heart was kind, but we 
had become so familiar with the threats and cruelty of the 
school, that we fled at the sound of harsh tones. But his re- 
peated calls reassured us, and we returned and received his 
gifts." 

Four times Christmas found him amid the toils of the 
school at Erfurt. Then came a Christmas in which the angel 
voice seemed no more to sing, "Peace on earth, good will 



Luther at 
Christmas. 



LUTHER AT CHRISTMAS. 35 

toward men ; " nothing but wrath seemed above him, and the 
pains of death around him. In the gray stone walls of the 
cloister he shut himself up to wrestle with dark doubts and 
agonizing fears. 

Christmas after Christmas came. Some sunshine flickered 
in successive years over the cell of the monk. The gentle 
hand of him who came as the Babe of Bethlehem was touch- 
ing and healing the heart corroded with care. Gleams of in- 
dwelling greatness began to break forth from the cloud in 
which he had been folded. 

The turn of the autumn leaves of 1517 reminded children 
that Christmas was once more drawing near ; but on the gales 
which swept those leaves from the trees was borne, through 
all Christendom, the first sounds of a mighty battle for the 
right of the Babe of Bethlehem to sit upon the throne of all 
hearts as the Saviour of the race. Years followed, but Christ- 
mas and all festivals, and all waking and all dreaming 
thoughts of men were directed to one great life-question, were 
absorbed in one surpassing interest. In half of Christendom, 
as Christmas eve came on, the soft light in children's eyes 
turned to a fierce glare, as lisping amid their toys and echoing 
the words of the old, they spoke of the traitor to the mother 
of the blessed Babe, the heretic who would destroy their 
Christmas if he could. In the other half of Christendom the 
eyes of men grew bright, and those of women were suffused 
with tears of gratitude, and children shouted for gladness at 
the mention of the name of one who had led back the race to 
the cradle, and taught them to bow there, as did the shep- 
herds in childlike trust — trust not in the mother, but in her 
holy Child. 

All days were Christmas to the great Restorer. He had 
found the Christ, and when he was not kneeling with the 
shepherds, he was singing with the angels. One Christmas he 
spent in his rocky Patmos, but a starlight, as soft as that of 
Palestine on the mystic night, touched every pinnacle of the 
old towers. The next Christmas passed in that circle of near 
friends which loved and was loved by one of the greatest 
and warmest hearts that ever beat in human bosoms. Bat- 



36 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

tie and storm, sorrow and sickness came, but Christmas came 
too. 

Then came a bright year, not the most glorious, but the 
most happy of his life. That great home-nature had never 
had a home. His Christmas had been spent in the home of 
others. There came a Christmas, and by his side, as he 
thanked God once more for the great gift to whose memory 
it was consecrated, there knelt by him his wife, her hand in 
his, and her face turned with his towards the world, whose 
light and song is the Babe of Bethlehem. The heaven of the 
presence of children was in that home in the Christmas of 
after years. Madeleine and Martin, Paul and Margaret, im- 
mortal by their birth, were the olive-plants around the Christ- 
mas tree. In the beautiful pictures by Konig, one of the 
happiest is devoted to Luther at Christmas in the family 
circle. The Christmas tree blazes in all its glory in the centre ; 
the tapers imparting a new ravishment to those inconceivable 
fruits, trumpets, horses, cakes, and dolls, which only Christ- 
mas trees can bear. On Luther's lap kneels his youngest child, 
clasping him around the neck. Its little night-cap and slip 
and bare feet show that it has been kept from its bed to see 
the wonderful sight. On Luther's shoulder, and clasping his 
hands in hers, leans Catherine, with the light of love, that 
light which can beam only from the eye of a devoted wife and 
mother, shining upon him. The oldest boy, under Melanch- 
thon's direction, is aiming with a cross-bow at an apple on the 
tree, recalling to our mind that charming ]etter which his 
father wrote from Coburg to him, when he was only four 
years old, in which are detailed the glories of that paradisiacal 
garden, meant for all good boys, where, among apples and 
pears, and ponies with golden bits and silver saddles, cross- 
bows of silver were not forgotten. * 

* Luther's letter to his little son is so beautiful and characteristic that our 
readers, though they have read it a hundred times, will not pass it by as we 
give it here. It was written in 1530, from Coburg, when Luther's destiny, and 
the whole future of his work, seemed trembling in the balance. It shows that 
his childlike mind was at once the cause and the result of his repose of spirit in 
God. 

"Grace and peace in Christ, my dear little son. I am very glad to know that 



LUTHER AT CHRISTMAS. 37 

At the table, " Muhme Lehne" (cousin Helena, not a with- 
ered old woman, as she is generally pictured, but Luther's 
young niece, who was not married till Madeleine was nine 
years old,) is showing a book of pictures to the second boy ; 
the third boy clasps his father's knee with one hand, in which, 
however, he manages to hold a string also, by which he has 
been drawing along a knight in full armor on horseback, while 
with the other hand he holds up a hobby-horse. Madeleine is 
clasping in her hand, in ecstasy, the little angel which always 
stands apeak of all orthodox Christmas trees — when it can be 
had — and which, when the curtain of the gorgeous child- 
drama of Christmas eve has fallen, is given to the angel of the 
household — the best of the children. Her doll by her side is 
forgotten, the full light from the tree is on her happy face, in 
which, however, there is an air of thought, something more 
of heavenly musing than is wont to be pictured upon the face 
of a child. 

you learn your lessons well, and love to say your prayers. Keep on doing so, 
my little boy, and when I come home I will bring you something pretty from the 
fair. I know a beautiful garden, where there are a great many children in fine 
little coats, and they go under the trees and gather beautiful apples and pears, 
cherries and plums: they sing, and run about, and are as happy as they can be. 
Sometimes they ride about on nice little ponies, with golden bridles and silver 
saddles. I asked the man whose garden it is, What little children are these ? 
And he told me, They are little children who love to pray and learn, and are 
good. Then I said: My dear sir, I have a little >m at home; his name is little 
Hans Luther ; would you let him come into the garden too, to eat some of these 
nice apples and pears, and ride on these fine little ponies, and play with these 
children ? The man said : If he loves to say his prayers, and learn his lesson, 
and is a good boy, he may come. And Philip and Jocelin may come too ; and 
when they are all together, they can play upon the fife and drum and lute and all 
kinds of instruments, and skip about and shoot with little cross-bows. He then 
showed me a beautiful mossy place in the middle of the garden, for them to skip 
about in, with a great many golden fifes, and drums, and silver cross-bows. The 
children had not yet had their dinner, and I could not wait to see them play, but 
I said to the man: My dear sir, I will go away and write all about it to my little 
son, John, and tell him to be fond of saying his prayers, and learn well, and be 
good, so that he may come into this garden ; but he has a cousin Lehne, whom 
he must bring along with him. The man said, Very well, go write to him. 
Now, my dear little son, love your lessons, and your prayers, and tell Philip 
and Jocelin to do so too, that you may all come to the garden. May God bless 
you. Give cousin Lehne my love, and kiss her for me." 



38 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Oh, happy Christmas ! thou mayest be the prelude to wail- 
ing. The little coffin may follow the Christmas tree within 
our door. Thy babe, Bethlehem, turned in the sleep of that 
hallowed night, his pure, pale face toward Gethsemane. The 
angel of the Christmas tree could not guard the home from 
life's sorrows. Days of grief are coming thick and fast upon 
that noble one, whom heaven, earth, and hell knew so well. 
Carrying the weight of a wounded heart, that form was 
bowed, which neither kings, nor popes, nor devils could bend. 
The candles of the Christmas tree of 1542 were not mirrored 
in the eyes of his beautiful and darling Madeleine. Those 
gentle eyes had been closed by her father's hand three months 
before — the ruddy lips parting in joy at the Christmas festival, 
one year ago, had received the last kiss — their music was 
hushed in the home, and the little ones grew still in the very 
flush of their joy, as they thought that their sister was lying 
in the church-yard, with the chill snows drifting around her 
grave. 

The old man's heart was longing for Christmas in heaven, 
and his sigh was heard. 

Through threescore and two years he had on earth opened 
his eyes upon the natal day of oar Redeemer. When the next 
Christmas came he stood by that Redeemer's side in glory ; 
and transfigured in heaven's light, and in surpassing sweet- 
ness, there stood with him that fair girl who had gazed upon 
the angel of the Christmas tree with dreamy eyes, which told 
that even then, in thought, she was already in heaven. 

As we think upon the obvious meaning of the artist in her 
attitude and occupation, the heart grows, not wholly unpre- 
pared for the next and last of these family scenes. Luther 
kneels by the coffin of this same lovely daughter. The struggle 
is over ; a holy serenity illumines his face. He has given her 
back, with no rebellious murmur, to her God. To those who 
Luther and Ma- h ave contemplated the character of Luther only 
aeieine. [ n his public life, it might appear strange to 

assert that there never was a heart more susceptible than 
his to all that is tender in human emotion, or melting in hu- 
man sympathies. The man who, while he was shaking to its 



LUTHER AND MADELEINE. 39 

foundation the mightiest dominion the world ever saw, re- 
mained unshaken, was in his social and domestic life a perfect 
example of gentleness. " Perhaps no man of so humble, peace- 
able disposition ever filled the world with contention. We 
cannot hut see that he would have loved privacy, quiet dili- 
gence in the shade ; that it was against his will he ever became 
a notoriety." — "They err greatly who imagine that this man's 
courage was ferocity — no accusation could be more unjust. 
A most gentle heart withal, full of pity and love, as indeed the 
truly valiant heart ever is. I know few things more touching 
than those soft breathings of affection, soft as a child's or a 
mother's, in this great wild heart of Luther. Luther to a 
slight observer might have seemed a timid, weak man ; mod- 
esty, affectionate shrinking tenderness, the chief distinction of 
him. It is a noble valor which is. roused in a heart like this, 
once stirred up into defiance ; all kindled into a heavenly 
blaze." * How open his heart was to those influences which 
sanctify whilst they sadden, he showed on the death of Eliza- 
beth, his second child, in infancy: "My little daughter is dead. 
I am surprised how sick at heart she has left me ; a woman's 
heart, so shaken am I. I could not have believed that a 
father's soul would have been so tender toward his child." 
" I can teach you what it is to be a father, especially a father 
of one of that sex which, far more than sons, has the power of 
awakening our most tender emotions." Yet more touching 
was that event to which oar artist has consecrated this pic- 
ture. Madeleine, his third child, and second daughter, died in 
September, 1542, in the fourteenth year of her age — four years 
before her father. " Luther bore this blow with wonderful 
firmness. As his daughter lay very ill, he exclaimed, as he 
raised his eyes to heaven, ' I love her much, but, my God ! 
if it be thy will to take her hence, I would give her up to thee 
without one selfish murmur.' One day she suffered violent 
pain : he approached her bed, and taking hold of her small 
thin hands, pressed them again and again to his lips. ' My 
dearest child, my own sweet and good Madeleine, I know you 
would gladly stay with your father here ; but in heaven there 

* Carlyle's Heroes and Hero-Worship, p. 125. 



40 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

is a better Father waiting for you. You will be equally ready 
to go to your Father in heaven, will you not?' ' yes, dear 
father,' answered the dying child, ' let the will of God be done.' 
6 Dear little girl,' he continued, ' the spirit is willing, but the 
flesh is weak.' He walked to and fro in agitation, and said, 
* Ah, yes ! I have loved this dear child too much. If the flesh 
is so strong, what becomes of the spirit ? ' Turning to a friend 
who had come to visit him : ' See,' said he, ' God has not given 
such good gifts these thousand years to any bishop as He has 
to me. We may glorify ourselves in the gifts of God. Alas I 
I feel humbled that I cannot rejoice now as I ought to do, nor 
render sufficient thanks to God. I try to lift up my heart 
from time to time to our Lord in some little hymn, and to 
feel as I ought to do.' — c "Well, whether we live or die, we 
are the Lord's.'" 

The night before Madeleine's death, her mother had a dream, 
in which she saw two fair youths beautifully attired, who 
came as if they wished to take Madeleine away with them, and 
conduct her to be married. When Melanchthon came the 
next morning and asked the lady how it was with her daughter, 
she related her dream, at which he seemed frightened, and re- 
marked to others, "that the young men were two holy angels, 
sent to carry the maiden to the true nuptials of a heavenly 
kingdom." She died that same day. When the last agony 
came on, and the countenance of the young girl was clouded 
with the dark hues of approaching death, her father threw 
himself on his knees by her bedside, and with clasped hands, 
weeping bitterly, prayed to God that he would spare her. 
Her consciousness ceased, and resting in her father's arms she 
breathed her last. Catherine, her mother, was in a recess of 
the room, unable, from excess of grief, to look upon the death- 
bed of her child. Luther softly laid the head of his beloved 
one upon the pillow, and repeatedly exclaimed : " Poor child, 
thou hast found a Father in heaven ! my God ! let thy will 
be done I " Melanchthon then observed that the love of pa- 
rents for their children is an image of the divine love impressed 
on the hearts of men. God loves mankind no less than parents 
do their children. 



LUTHER AND MADELEINE. 41 

On the following day she was interred. When they placed 
her on the bier, her father exclaimed, " My poor, dear little 
Madeleine, yon are at rest now!" The workman had made 
the coffin somewhat too small. " Thy conch here," said Lu- 
ther, "is narrow; hnt oh I how beautiful is that on which thou 
restest above ! " Then looking long and fixedly at her, he 
said, "Yes, dear child, thou shalt rise again, shalt shine as the 
stars, yes, like the sun. . . I am joyful in spirit ; but oh, how 
sad in the flesh ! It is a strange feeling, this, to know she is 
so certainly at rest, that she is happy, and yet to be so sad." 
When the body was being lowered into the grave, " Farewell ! " 
he exclaimed, " Farewell, thou lovely star, we shall meet 
again." 

The people in great crowds attended the funeral, showing 
the deepest sympathy with his grief. When the bearers came 
to his house and expressed their sorrow, he replied, " Ah, 
grieve no more for her ; I have given to heaven another angel. 
Oh I that we may each experience such a death : such a death 
I would gladly die this moment." " True," said a bystander ; to 
whom Luther replied, "Flesh is flesh, and blood is blood. But 
there may be joy in the heart, whilst there is sorrow in the 
countenance. It is the flesh that weeps and is afflicted." At 
the grave the language of condolence was offered. " We know 
how you suffer." — " Thanks for your sympathy," said he, "but 
I am not sad — my dear angel is in heaven." 

Whilst some laborers were singing at the grave the words 
"Lord remember not our sins of old," he was heard to sigh: 
" "No, gracious Lord ; nor our sins of to-day, nor of times tc 
come." 

When the grave-digger threw the earth on the coffin, " Fix 
your eyes," said Luther, " on the resurrection of the flesh ; 
heaven is my daughter's portion — body and soul — all is the 
arrangement of God in his providence. Why should we re- 
pine ? Is it not His will that is accomplished ? We are the 
children of eternity. I have begotten a child for heaven." 

On returning from the burial, he said, amongst other things, 
" The fate of our children, and above all, of girls, is ever a 
cause of uneasiness. I do not fear so much for boys ; they can 



42 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION 

find a living anywhere, provided they know how to work. 
But it is different with girls ; they, poor things, must search 
for employment, staff in hand. A boy can enter the schools, 
and attain eminence, but a girl cannot do much to advance 
herself; and is easily led away by bad example, and is lost. 
Therefore, without regret, I give up this dear one to our 
Lord. Children die without anguish ; they know not the bit- 
ter pains of death ; it is as if they fell asleep." 

This affliction struck Luther to the heart. He looked upon 
it as an admonition of Heaven : it was another thunderbolt. 
The first had taken from him the friend of his youth, Alexis : 
the second snatched from him an idolized child, the joy of his 
old age. From this period, all his letters are tinged with 
melancholy : the raven wing of death was ever fluttering in 
his ear. On receiving a letter from the Elector, who wished 
him many years of long life, he shook his head mournfully, 
and in reply to his friend wrote : ' The pitcher has gone too 
often to the well ; it will break at last.' One day, while preach- 
ing, he drew tears from his audience, by announcing to them 
his approaching death. " The world is tired of me," said he, 
" and I am tired of the world; soon shall we be divorced — the 
traveller will soon quit his lodging." 

Soon after her death, he wrote to a friend : " Report has, no 
doubt, informed you of the transplanting of my daughter to the 
kingdom of Christ ; and although my wife and I ought only 
to think of offering up joyful thanks to the Almighty for her 
happy end, by which she has been delivered from all the snares 
of the world, nevertheless, the force of natural affection is so 
great, that I cannot forbear indulging in tears, sighs, and 
groans ; say rather my heart dies within me. I feel, engraven 
on my inmost soul, her features, words, and actions ; all that 
she was to me, in life and health, and on her sick-bed — my 
dear, my dutiful child. The death of Christ himself (and oh ! 
what are all deaths in comparison?) cannot tear her away from 
my thoughts, as it should. She was, as you know, so sweet, 
so amiable, so full of tenderness." 

When the coffin had been covered with earth, a small tomb- 
stone was placed over it, on which was the name of the child, 



LUTHER'S LAST DAYS. 43 

her age, the day of her death, and a text of Scripture. Some 
time after, when Luther could apply himself to labor, he com- 
posed a Latin inscription, which was carved upon a monu- 
mental slab : and which breathes a spirit of subdued melan- 
choly, and .resignation to God's will: 

"Dormio cum Sanctis hie Magdalena, Lutheri 
Filia, et hoc strato tecta quiesco meo ; 
Filia mortis eram, peccati semine nata, 
Sanguine sed vivo Christe redempta tuo." 

"I, Luther's daughter Madeleine, with the Saints here sleep, 
And covered, calmly rest on this my couch of earth ; 
Daughter of death I was, born of the seed of sin, 
But by thy precious blood redeemed, Christ ! I live." 

""We looked," says Audin, the Romish historian, who, ani- 
mated by a strange enthusiasm for the great opposer of the 
corruptions of his Church, followed his footsteps as a pilgrim 
— " we looked for this tomb in the cemetery at Wittenberg, 
but could not find it." The mild, regular features, the gentle 
eyes, the broad forehead, the flowing hair, and womanly repose, 
which the picture * of this child presents, are all in keeping 
with the image which her father's grief has impressed upon 
the heart ; and though the searcher looks in vain for the stone 
which marks her lowly resting-place, her memory shall dwell 
sweetly in the heart of the world, with that of her more than 
illustrious father, to the end of time. 

The next two pictures illustrate Luther's strength of char- 
acter while in personal jeopardy. The first rep- Luther > s Iast 
resents Luther and Kohlhase — the second, Lu- da y s - Death - 
ther among the dying and the dead, during the plague. The 
last three pictures present the closing scenes of his life — his 
journey to Mansfeld on a mission of peace and conciliation, 
his death and burial. During his last hours he repeated fre- 
quently the words : " Father, into thy hands I commend my 
spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, God of truth." When Jonas 
and Coelius asked him, " Reverend father, do you die faithful 

* This portrait is given in Juncker's interesting work on the medals of the 
Reformation. 



44 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

to Christ, and to the doctrine you have preached? " He replied 
distinctly, "I do ! " These were his last words on earth, and 
in the first hour of February 18th, 1546, he fell asleep in Jesus. 
"Now," said Melanchthon, as he stood by the coffin, — " now 
he is united with the prophets of whom he loved to speak, now 
they greet him as their fellow-laborer, and with him thank 
the Lord who collects and upholds his Church to the end of 
time." 

In addition to the descriptive matter that accompanies each 
picture, we have " Historical Sketches " by Gelzer. First we 
have an introduction, and then four sketches. The first sketch 
presents the preparation and ground- work of the Reformation 
— the Reformation before Luther, and the great work which 
took place in him before he came forth to the world. The 
second sketch embraces the contest with Rome ; the third, 
" Reformation and Revolution ; " the last, the Reformer and 
his work. 

There was one picture promised us, which we would fain 
charies v. at nave na( ^? Dn ^ which is not given. It is one which 
Luther's tomb, connects itself with the Providence of God watch- 
ing over the ashes of his servant, whose body he had protected 
in life. Luther had been " taken from the evil to come." 
The year after his death Wittenberg was filled with the troops 
of Charles V., many of whom were full of intense hate to the 
great Reformer. One of the soldiers gave Luther's effigies in 
the Castle-church two stabs with his dagger. The Spaniards 
earnestly solicited their Emperor to destroy the tomb, and dig 
up and burn the remains of Luther, as this second LIuss could 
not now be burned alive. To this diabolical proposition the 
Emperor sternly replied : " My work with Luther is done ; he 
has now another Judge, whose sphere I may not invade. I 
war with the living, not with the dead." And when he found 
that the effort was not dropped, to bring about this sacri- 
legious deed, he gave orders that any violation of Luther's 
tomb should be followed by the death of the offender.* Charles, 
it is said, died a Protestant on the great central doctrine of 

* Bayle's Dictionary, (H. H.) Juncker's Guldene und Silberne Ehren-Ge- 
dacktniss Lutheri. Franckf. und Leipz. 1706, p. 281. 



LESSING — HEINE. 45 

justification by faith. May we not hope that after the war- 
fare of life, Charles, the most ambitious of the Emperors of his 
age, and Luther, the greatest disturber of his plans of ambition, 
have reached a common consummation. 

It is a hopeful thing that the German heart, through all 
religious and civil convulsions, has remained true to the mem- 
ory of Luther. Komanists have emulated Protest- Luther charac . 
ants in his praise ; Eationalists have seemed to terized - 
venerate him whilst they were laboring to undo his work. 
After three centuries of birth-throes, Germany feels that she 
has given to the world no second Luther. The womb of Time 
bears such fruit but once in thousands of years. " In such 
reverence do I hold Luther," says Lessing, " that I rejoice in 
having been able to find some defects in him ; for 
I have, in fact, been in imminent danger of mak- 
ing him an object of idolatrous veneration. The proofs, that 
in some things he was like other men, are to me as precious 
as the most dazzling of his virtues." — "What a shame," says 
Hamann, (1759,) " to our times, that the spirit of this man, 
who founded our Church, so lies beneath the ashes ! What a 
power of eloquence, what a spirit of interpretation, what a 
prophet! " — "We are not able to place ourselves even up to 
the point from which he started." 

" He created the German language," says Heine. " He was 
not only the greatest, but the most German man of our history. 
In his character all the faults and all the virtues 

Heine. 

of the Germans are combined on the largest scale. 
Then he had qualities which are very seldom found united, 
which we are accustomed to regard as irreconcilable antag- 
onisms. He was, at the same time, a dreamy mystic and a 
practical man of action. His thoughts had not only wings, 
but hands. He spoke and he acted. He was not only the 
tongue, but the sword of his time. When he had plagued 
himself all day long with his doctrinal distinctions, in the 
evening he took his flute and gazed at the stars, dissolved in 
melody and devotion. He could be soft as a tender maiden. 
Sometimes he was wild as the storm that uproots the oak, and 
then again he was gentle as the zephyr that dallies with the 



46 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

violet. He was full of the most awful reverence and of self- 
sacrifice in honor of the Holy Spirit. He could merge himself 
entire in pure spirituality. And yet he was well acquainted 
with the glories of this world, and knew how to prize them. 
He was a complete man, I would say an absolute man, one in 
whom matter and spirit were not divided. To call him a 
spiritualist, therefore, would be as great an error as to call 
him a sensualist. How shall I express it ? He had something 
original, incomprehensible, miraculous, such as we find in all 
providential men — something invincible, spirit-possessed." 
" A fiery and daring spirit," Menzel calls him. " A hero 
in the garb of a monk." But the most interesting: 

Menzel. D 

testimony is that borne by Frederick Schlegel ; in- 
teresting not only because of the greatness of its source, but 
because based on a thorough knowledge of the person of whom 
he speaks, because uttered by a devoted and conscientious Ro- 
manist, and accompanied by such remarks as to 
show that, deep as is his admiration of Luther, 
he has in no respect been blinded by it. We will give ex- 
tracts from his three great works: on " the History of Liter- 
ature:" on "Modern History:" and on the "Philosophy of 
History." 

" I have already explained in what way the poetry and art 
of the middle age were lost, during the controversies of the 
sixteenth, and how our language itself became corrupted. 
There was one instrument by which the influx of barbarism 
was opposed, and one treasure which made up for what had 
been lost — I mean the German translation of the Bible. It is 
well known to you, that all true philologists regard this as the 
standard and model of classical expression in the German lan- 
guage ; and that not only Klopstock, but many other writers 
of the first rank, have fashioned their style and selected their 
phrases according to the rules of this version. It is worthy of 
notice, that in no other modern language have so many Bibli- 
cal words and phrases come into the use of common life as in 
ours. I perfectly agree with those writers who consider this 
circumstance as a fortunate one ; and I believe that from it 
has been derived not a little of that power, life, and simplicity, 



SCHLEGEL. 47 

by which, I think, the best German writers are distinguished 
from all other moderns. The Catholic, as well as the modern 
Protestant scholar, has many things to find fault with in this 
translation; but these, after all, regard only individual pas- 
sages. In these later times, we have witnessed an attempt to 
render a new and rational translation of the Bible an instru- 
ment of propagating the doctrines of the illuminati ; and we 
have seen this too much even in the hands of Catholics them- 
selves. But the instant this folly had blown over, we returned, 
with increased affection, to the excellent old version of Luther. 
He, indeed, has not the whole merit of producing it. We owe 
to him, nevertheless, the highest gratitude for placing in our 
hands this most noble and manly model of German expression. 
Even iu his own writings he displays a most original eloquence, 
surpassed by few names that occur in the whole history of lit- 
erature. He had, indeed, all those qualities which fit a man 
to be a revolutionary orator. This revolutionary eloquence is 
manifest, not only in his half-political and business writings, 
such as the Address to the Nobility of the German Nation, but 
in all the works which he has left behind him. In almost the 
whole of them, we perceive the marks of mighty internal con- 
flict. Two worlds appear to be contending for the mastery 
over the mighty soul of this man, so favored by God and 
nature. Throughout all his writings there prevails a struggle 
between light and darkness, faith and passion, God and him- 
self. The choice which he made - — the use to which he de- 
voted his majestic genius — these are subjects upon which it is 
even now quite impossible for me to speak, so as to please you 
all. As to the intellectual power and greatness of Luther, 
abstracted from all consideration of the uses to which he ap- 
plied them, I think there are few, even of his own' disciples, 
who appreciate him highly enough. His coadjutors were 
mostly mere scholars,' indolent and enlightened men of the 
common order. It was upon him and his soul that the fate of 
Europe depended. He was the man of his age and nation." * 
Let us hear another expression of the opinion of this great 
man. " That the Reformation did not at its very commence- 

* Lectures on the History of Literature, New York, 1841, p. 318-350. 



48 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ment become a revolution of this kind, we are chiefly indebted 
to Luther, (a revolution in which war and the flames of popu- 
lar passion took their own destructive course.) He it was who 
thus gave permanency to the Reformation. Had not Luther 
opposed with all his power the dangerous errors into which 
some of his adherents at the very first fell ; had these fanatical 
doctrines of universal equality, and of the abolition of all tem- 
poral authority as a thing superfluous in the new state of things, 
obtained the upper hand ; had the so-called Reformation of 
faith and of the Church become wholly and entirely a political 
and national revolution ; in that case, the first shock of civil 
war would have been incontestably more terrific and more 
universal ; but it would, probably, when the storm had blown 
over, have subsided of itself, and a return to the old order of 
things would have ensued. The princes in particular were 
indebted to Luther for having contributed so vigorously to 
stifle the flames of rebellion ; and he must thereby have gained 
consideration even among those who disapproved of his doc- 
trines and proceedings. His personal character in general was 
excellently adapted to consolidate and perpetuate his party. 
The great energy, which gave him such a decided preponder- 
ance over all who co-operated with him, preserved as much 
unity as was at all possible in such a state of moral ferment. 
With whatever passionate violence Luther may have expressed 
himself, he nevertheless, in his principles and modes of think- 
ing, preserved in many points the precise medium that was 
necessary to keep his party together as a distinct party. Had 
he at the first beginning gone farther, had he sanctioned the 
fanaticism adverted to above, the whole affair would then have 
fallen sooner to the ground. The very circumstance, that he 
did not at first secede from the ancient faith more than he did, 
procured him so many and such important adherents, and gave 
such strength to his party. He was undeniably gifted with 
great qualities. Luther's eloquence made him a man of the 
people ; his principles, however, despite his passionate expres- 
sion of them, remained, nevertheless, in essentials, both with 
regard to political subjects and to matters of faith, within cer- 
tain limits; and joined to that circumstance, the very obstinacy 



SCHLEGEL. 49 

which his friends complained of, consolidated and united the 
new party and gave it a permanent strength."* 

With some extracts from the " Philosophy of History," by 
the same distinguished author, we shall close the illustrations 
from his hand. 

" In the first place, as regards the Reformation, it is evident 
of itself, that a man who accomplished so mighty a revolution 
in the human mind, and in his age, could have been endowed 
with no ordinary powers of intellect, and no common strength 
of character. Even his writings display an astonishing bold- 
ness and energy of thought and language, united with a spirit 
of impetuous, passionate and convulsive enthusiasm. The 
opinion, as to the use which was made of these high powers 
of genius, must, of course, vary with the religious principles 
of each individual ; but the extent of these intellectual endow- 
ments themselves, and the strength and perseverance of char- 
acter with which they were united, must be universally ad- 
mitted. Many who did not afterwards adhere to the new 
opinions, still thought, at the commencement of the Reforma- 
tion, that Luther was the real man for his age, who had 
received a high vocation to accomplish the great work of regen- 
eration, the strong necessity of which was then universally 
felt. If, at this great distance of time, we pick out of the 
writings of this individual many very harsh expressions, nay, 
particular words which are not only coarse but absolutely 
gross, nothing of any moment can be proved or determined by 
such selections. Indeed, the age in general, not only in Ger- 
many, but in other very highly civilized countries, was char- 
acterized by a certain coarseness in manners and language, and 
by a total absence of all excessive polish and over-refinement 
of character. But this coarseness would have been productive 
of no very destructive effects ; for intelligent men well knew 
that the wounds of old abuses lay deep, and were ulcerated in 
their very roots ; and no one, therefore, was shocked if the 
knife destined to amputate abuses, cut somewhat deep. It 
was by the conduct of Luther and the influence which he 
thereby acquired, that the Eeformation was promoted and 

* Lectures on Modern History, London, 1849, p. 169. 



50 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

consolidated. Without this, Protestantism would have sunk 
into the lawless anarchy which marked the proceedings of 
the Hussites, and to which the War of the Peasants rapidly 
tended ; and it would inevitably have been suppressed, like all 
the earlier popular commotions — for, under the latter form. 
Protestantism may be said to have sprung up several centuries 
before. None of the other heads and leaders of the new re- 
ligious party had the power, or were in a situation to uphold 
the Protestant religion : its present existence is solely and en- 
tirely the work and the deed of one man, unique in his way, 
and who holds unquestionably a conspicuous place in the his- 
tory of .the world. Much was staked on the soul of that man, 
and this was in every respect a mighty and critical moment in 
the annals of mankind and the march of time. 55 

It will, perhaps, not be wholly a thankless work to add here 
some of the attestations of distinguished men of every shade 
of opinion, and in the most varied positions, which demon- 
strate how profound and many-sided was that character which 
left so great an impress on them all. " Martin Luther, 55 says 
Dr. Bancroft, " a man of the most powerful mind and intrepid 
character, who persisted resolutely in his defence 
of Christian liberty and Christian truth; and by 
the blessing of God he triumphed over all opposition. His 
name is identified in every country with the reformed religion, 
and will be venerated and esteemed in every subsequent age, 
by all who prize religious freedom, and set a value on religious 
privileges. 55 * 

This is the language of a Congregational Unitarian, in New 
England. Let us hear from a high-church English Bishop, 
eminent for all that intellect can confer, a testimony no less 
strong : " Martin Luther's life, 55 says Bishop Atterbury, " was 
a continued warfare. He was engaged against the 
united forces of the Papal world, and he stood the 
shock of them bravely, both with courage and success. He 
was a man certainly of high endowments of mind, and great 
virtues. He had a vast understanding, which raised him to a 

* Sermons on Doctrines, etc., which Christians have made the Subject of Con- 
troversy. By Aaron Bancroft, D. D. Worcester, 1822. Serm. XI. 



B A YL E— TENNIS N 51 

pitch of learning unknown to the age in which he lived. His 
knowledge in Scripture was admirable, his elocution manly, 
and his way of reasoning, with all the subtility that the plain 
truths he delivered would hear. His thoughts were bent 
always on great designs, and he had a resolution to go through 
with them, and the assurance of his mind was not to be shaken, 
or surprised. His life was holy, and, when he had leisure for 
retirement, severe. His virtues were active chiefly, and social, 
and not those lazy, sullen ones of the cloister. He had no am- 
bition, but in the service of God ; for other things, neither his 
enjoyments nor wishes ever went higher than the bare conve- 
niences of living. If, among this crowd of virtues, a failing 
crept in, we must remember that an apostle himself had not 
been irreproachable ; if in the body of his doctrine, a flaw is to 
be seen, yet the greatest lights of the Church, and in the purest 
times of it, were, we know, not exact in all their opinions. 
Upon the whole, we have certainly great reason to break out 
in the language of the prophet, and say, ' How beautiful on 
the mountains are the feet of him who bringeth glad tidings.'"* 
Bayle, prince of skeptics, has devoted an article of his great 
Dictionary, to a defence of Luther's character from 

. . Bayle. 

the falsehoods which have been published concern- 
ing him. His slanderers, Bayle says, have had no regard to 
probability or the rules of their own art. " His greatest 
enemies cannot deny but that he had eminent qualities, and 
history affords nothing more surprising than what he has 
done : for a simple monk to be able to give Popery so rude a 
shock, that there needed but such another entirely' to over- 
throw the Romish Church, is what we cannot sufficiently 
admire." f 

Archbishop Tennison, of the Church of England, says : 
" Luther was indeed a man of warm temper, and 
uncourtly language ; but (besides that he had his 

* Atterbury's vindication of Luther, (1687.) Burnet, in his History of his Own 
Times, regards this vindication as one of the most able defences of the Protestant 
religion. Atterbury, on his trial, appealed to this book to exculpate himself from 
the charge of a secret leaning to Popery. 

-j- Bayle's Histor. and Critic. Dictionary, translated by Maizeaux. London, 
1736, vol. iii., pp. 934-937. 



52 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

education among those who so vehemently reviled him) it 
may be considered, whether in passing through so very rough 
a sea, it was not next to impossible for him not to beat the 
insulting waves till they foamed again. Erasmus tells us ' that 
he perceived,* the better any man was, the more he relished 
the writings of Luther ; ' * that his very enemies allowed 
him to be a man of good life ; that he seemed to him to have 
in his breast certain eminent Evangelical sparks ; that it was 
plain that some condemned things in Luther's writings which 
in Augustine and Bernard passed for pious and orthodox." f 
Bishop Kidder, in the same interesting collection from which 
we have just quoted, alludes to the " Confessions 
of Adversaries," which Bellarmine has presented 
as the thirteenth mark of the Church. This weapon he turns 
against the great Romish author : " As for Martin Luther, 
whatever the Romanists say of him now, yet certain it is that 
Erasmus, who I hope will pass with Cardinal Bellarmine for a 
Catholic, who lived in his time, gives a better account of him. 
In his letter to the Cardinal of York, speaking of Luther, he 
says : % ' His life is approved by all men, and this is no slight 
ground of prejudice in his favor, that such was the integrity 
of his morals, that his enemies could find nothing to reproach 
him with.' Again, in a letter to Melanchthon : § ; All men 
among us approve the life of Luther.' " || 

Even Bossuet' the eagle of Meaux, is obliged, at the begin- 
ning of his ferocious assault on Protestantism, to 
concede something in regard to Luther's gifts : 
" In the time of Luther, the most violent rupture, and greatest 
apostasy occurred, which had perhaps ever been seen in Chris- 
tendom. The two parties, who have called themselves reformed, 
have alike recognized him as the author of this new Reforma- 
tion. It is not alone his followers, the Lutherans, who have 
lavished upon him the highest praises. Calvin frequently ad- 
mires his virtues, his magnanimity, his constancy, the incom- 

* Erasm. Epist. ad Albert. Episc, etc., pp. 584, 585. 

f Bellarmine's Notes of the Church Examined and Refuted, London, 1840, 
p. 251. 

% EraBm. Ep,, lib. xi., Ep. 1. 

g Ep., lib. vii., Ep. 43. || Bellarmine's Notes Examined, etc., p. 312. 



BOWER. 53 

parable industry which he displayed against the Pope, v He is 
the trumpet, or rather, he is the thunder — he is the lightning 
which has roused the world from its lethargy,: it was not so 
much Luther that spoke as God whose lightnings burst from 
his lips. And it is true he had a strength of genius, a vehe- 
mence in his discourses, a living and impetuous eloquence 
which entranced and ravished the people." * 

The judgment of Bower in regard to Luther, is, on the 
whole, the most discriminating which had ap- 
peared in the English language up to his time. 
" In the personal character of Luther, we discern many quali- 
ties calculated to enable him to discharge with success the 
important duty to which he was called. A constitutional 
ardor for devotion, a boundless thirst of knowledge, and a 
fearless zeal in communicating it, were prominent character- 
istics of this extraordinary man. An unwearied perseverance 
in theological research, led him to detect errors, and to relin- 
quish step by step, many of his early opinions. In all situ- 
ations Luther is the same, pursuing indefatigably the knowl- 
edge of the word of God, and never scrupling to avow his 
past mistakes, whenever the confession could facilitate the 
inquiries or confirm the faith of others. It was in vain that 
the head of the Church, and the chief of the German Empire 
combined to threaten and proscribe him — he braved with 
equal courage the very lance of either power, and continued 
to denounce, with an unsparing hand, the prevalence of cor- 
ruption. In no single instance did he seek to turn to his 
personal advantage, his distinctions and the influence attached 
to them. How few individuals would have possessed Luther's 
power without making it subservient to the acquisition of 
rank or honors ? All these were disdained by him, and his 
mind remained wholly occupied with the diffusion of religious 
truth. Even literary fame had no attractions for him. The 
improvement of the condition of his fellow-creatures was the 
object, which with him superseded every other consideration. 
No temptation of ambition could remove him, in his days of 

* (Euvres de Bossuet, (Histoire des Variations,) Paris, Didot Frferes, 1847, vol. 
iv., p. 9. 



54 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

celebrity, from his favorite University of Wittenberg. While 
his doctrine spread far and wide, and wealthy cities would 
have been proud to receive him, Luther clung to the spot 
where he discharged the duty of a teacher, and to the asso- 
ciates whom he had known in his season of humility. The 
freedom of his language in treating of the conduct of the 
great, arose partly from his constitutional ardor, and partly 
from an habitual impression of the all-powerful claims of 
truth. The lofty attitude, so often assumed by him, is not 
therefore to be attributed to pride or vanity. In treating of 
the Scriptures, he considered himself as acting in the presence 
of God, whose majesty and glory were so infinitely exalted 
above all created beings, as to reduce to one and the same 
level the artificial distinctions of worldly institutions. Under 
this conviction, the prince or king, who ventured to oppose 
what Luther considered the word of God, seemed to him no 
more exempted from severe epithets than the humblest of his 
adversaries. However we may censure the length to which 
his freedom was carried, the boldness of his conduct was, on 
the whole, productive of much good. An independent and 
manly tone in regard not only to religion, but to civil liberty, lit- 
erature, the arts and sciences, was created and disseminated by 
his example. Few writers discover greater knowledge of the 
world, or a happier talent in analyzing and illustrating the 
shades of character. It is equally remarkable that no man could 
display more forcibly the tranquil consolations of religion. Few 
men entered with more ardor into the innocent pleasures of 
society. His frankness of disposition was apparent at the first 
interview, and his communicative turn, joined to the richness 
of his stores, rendered his conversation remarkably interest- 
ing. In treating of humorous subjects, he discovered as much 
vivacity and playfulness as if he had been a man unaccustomed 
to serious research." His conjugal and paternal affection, his 
love of music, his power of throwing a charm around the 
topics of religion, his fearlessness in danger, and his extraor- 
dinary powers as a preacher, are dwelt upon by Bower, whose 
sketch is one well worthy of being read.* 

* The Life of Luther, etc., by Alexander Bower. Philadelphia. 1824. 



BREWSTER — BUDDEUS. 55 

In a similar strain proceeds the language of the Rev. James 
Brewster, who, in speaking of Luther's character as a musician 
and composer, mentions that " the great Handel acknowledged 
that he had derived singular advantage from studying the 
compositions of the great Saxon Reformer." * Buddeus gives 
us a particular account of the principal writings Brewster 
of Luther, and points out his great services in all Buddeus. 
the departments of theology and practical Christianity. Among 
the foremost of these, he places his revival of catechising and 
his invaluable contributions to it ; he points out how much he 
did for moral theology, and the great obligations under which 
he laid the Church, by his translation of the Bible. We will 
give his estimate of Luther in the department of Polemic The- 
ology : " Here, beyond controversy, the highest praise is due 
to our sainted Luther, who first, when all was lost, all in des- 
pair, lifted up the standard of better hopes. Nor could one 
better fitted for sustaining the cause of truth have been found. 
Acuteness of judgment and fertility of thought were both 
his ; these gave to him arguments of might, overwhelming 
eloquence which swept everything before it like a torrent. His 
was an intrepid soul, which neither power, danger nor threats 
could turn from the right. The truth indeed fought for him ; 
but no less did he fight for the truth, so that no mortal could 
have done more to defend it, and place it beyond the reach of 
its foes. You are forced everywhere to confess the accurate 
disputer, the exquisite Theologian, the earnest defender of the 
truth. His own writings leave no room for doubt that he 
argued from profound conviction of the truth, and that he was 
wholly free from the crime of men who employ a line of de- 
fence, not because they regard it as true, but because it suits 
their purpose. The abundance of arguments well adapted to 
their purpose, the copiousness and power of his language, alike 
arrest the attention. He so demonstrates the truth, as to leave 
the errorist no subterfuge ; such is the firmness of his grasp, 
that he seizes the assent of the reader, hurries him, forces him 
to his conclusion. He asks no favors, makes no efibrt to pro- 
pitiate ; he compels by the weight of proof, triumphs by dem- 

* Edinburgh Encyclopedia, vol. xii., Philadelphia, 1832, art. Luther. 



56 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

onstration of the truth, and forces the unwilling to do homage 
to sound doctrine. When we look at the effrontery and ob- 
stinacy of his opponents, and their cruel purposes, we feel that 
in comparison with theirs, the severest language of Luther 
appears mild." * 

Calvin, who was far from being a hearty praiser, yet speaks 
thus of him, in a letter to Bullinger : " Eecall these 
things to your mind : how great a man Luther is, 
and in what great endowments he excels, with what fortitude 
of mind and constancy, with what excellent address, and effi- 
cacy of doctrine he has hitherto labored and watched to over- 
throw the kingdom of Antichrist, and propagate the doctrine 
of salvation. I often say, if he should call me a devil, I hold 
him in such honor, that I would acknowledge him an illus- 
trious servant of God." f Again, Calvin says of him : " We 
sincerely testify that we regard him as a noble apostle of Christ, 
by whose labor and ministry the purity of the Gospel has been 
restored in our times." \ Again: "If any one will carefully 
consider what was the state of things at the period when 
Luther arose, he will see that he had to contend with almost 
all the difficulties which were encountered by the Apostles. 
In one respect, indeed, his condition was worse and harder 
than theirs. There was no kingdom, no principality, against 
which they had to declare war ; whereas Luther could not go 
forth, except by the ruin and destruction of that empire which 
was not only the most powerful of all, but. regarded all the rest 
as obnoxious to itself." We cannot forbear quoting a few more 
sentences from Carlyle. "As a participant and dispenser of 
divine influences, he shows himself among human 
affairs a true connecting medium and visible Mes- 
senger between Heaven and Earth ; perhaps the most inspired 
of all teachers since the first apostles of his faith ; and thus 
not a poet only, but a Prophet and God -ordained Priest, 

* Buddei Isagoge Historico-theologica, Lipsiee,1730, pp. 1031, 1040. 

f J. Calvini Epistolae et Response, Genev., 1576, fol., p. 383. Life of John 
Calvin, by B-eza, translated by Sibson, Philada., 1836, p. 86. 

% Life and Times of John Calvin, translated from the German of Paul Henry, 
D. D., by H. Stebbing, D. D., New York, 1851, p. 18. 



THE COLERIDGES. 57 

which is the highest form of that dignity, and of all dignity." * 
" I will call this Luther a true Great Man ; great in intellect, 
in courage, affection, and integrity ; one of our most lovable 
and precious men. Great, not as a hewn obelisk ; but as an 
Alpine mountain, — so simple, honest, spontaneous, not setting 
up to be great at all ; there for quite another purpose than being 
great ! Ah, yes, unsubduable granite, piercing far and wide 
into the heavens ; yet in the cleft of its fountains, green beau- 
tiful valleys with flowers ! A right Spiritual Hero and Pro- 
phet ; once more, a true Son of Nature and Fact, for whom 
these centuries, and many that are to come yet, will be thank- 
ful to Heaven." f Martin Chemnitz, that most precious man 
of the second generation of the great divines of our Church, 
like all who spoke of Luther, immediately after his 

r . J Chemnitz. 

own time, breathes the spirit of profound reverence 
toward him. After the death of Melanchthon, Chemnitz was 
indubitably the greatest living theologian. " What Quintilian 
said of Cicero : ' Hie sciat se in Uteris multum profecisse, cui 
Cicero plurimum placebit,' I apply to Luther. +\. man may tell 
how far he has advanced in theology, by the degree to which 
he is pleased by Luther's writings." J Claude, in his famous 
"Defence of the Reformation," which is still richly 
worth perusal, has vindicated the character of 
Luther in a very judicious manner : " We discover," he says, 
" a great many excellent things in him, an heroical courage, a 
great love for the truth, an ardent zeal for the glory of God, 
a great trust in His providence, extraordinary learning in a 
dark age, a profound respect for the Holy Scripture, an inde- 
fatigable spirit, and a great many other high qualities. "§ 

All who are familiar with the writings of S. T. Coleridge, 
know how deep was his reverence for Luther. To 
this his son, Henry Nelson Coleridge, makes numer- 
ous allusions in the defence of his father's religious opinions, 

* Critical and Miscellaneous Essays, by Thomas Carlyle, Philadelphia, 1850, 
p. 224. 

f Heroes and Hero-Worship, p. 127. 

J Locor-um Theolog. M. Cheninitti, Pars Tertia, 1623, Witebergge, p. 41. 

I A Defence of the Reformation, translated from the French of Monsieur 
Claude, etc., London, 1815, vol. i., p. 289. 



58 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

which forms part of his Introduction to the " Biographia Lite- 
raria" — "He saw," says his son, "the very mind of St. Paul in 
the teaching of Luther on the Law and Justification by Faith/' 
"My father's affectionate respect for Luther is enough to alien- 
ate him from the High Anglican party." — "He thought the 
mind of Luther more akin to St. Paul's than that of any other 
Christian teacher." — "It is an insult," says Henry Nelson 
Coleridge, speaking in his own person, "to the apostolic man's 
(Luther's) memory, to defend him from the charge of Anti- 
nomianism. He knocked down with his little finger more 
Antinomianism than his accusers with both hands. If his 
doctrine is the jaw-bone of an ass, he must have been a very 
Samson, for he turned numbers with this instrument from 
the evil of their lives ; and the same instrument, in the hands 
of mere pigmies in comparison with him, has wrought more 
amendment of life among the poor, than the most eloquent 
and erudite preachers of works and rites have to boast, by 
their preaching." Coleridge is here answering some of the 
aspersions cast by High-Church writers on Luther. Referring 
to one of them, who had called the Commentary on Galatians 
" silly," he says, " Shakspeare has been called silly by Puri- 
tans, Milton worse than silly by Prelatists and Papists, Words- 
worth was long called silly by Bonaparteans ; what will not 
the odium theologicum or politicum find worthless and silly? 
To me, perhaps from my silliness, his Commentary appears the 
very Iliad of justification by faith alone ; all the fine and strik- 
ing things that have been said upon the subject, are taken 
from it ; and if the author preached a novel doctrine, or pre- 
sented a novel development of Scripture in this work, as Mr. 
Newman avers, I think he deserves great credit for his origin- 
ality. The Commentary contains, or rather is, a most spirited 
siege of Babylon, and the friends of Rome like it as well as the 
French like Wellington and the battle of Waterloo." — "My 
father called Luther, in parts, the most evangelical writer he 
knew, after the apostles and apostolic men." This he said in 
view of his " depth of insight into the heart of man and into 
the ideas of the Bible, the fervor and reality of his religious 
feelings, the manliness and tenderness of his spirit, the vehe- 



WILLIAM COXE. 59 

ment eloquence with which he assails the Romish practical 
fallacies and abuses." — "It is for these things that staunch 
' Catholics ' hate ; for these things that my father loved and 
honored Luther's name." — "How would Christendom have 
fared without a Luther? What would Rome have done and 
dared but for the Ocean of the Reformed that rounds her? 
Luther lives yet — not so beneficially in the Lutheran Church 
as out of it — an antagonist spirit to Rome, and a purifying 
and preserving spirit in Christendom at large."* 

" Luther possessed a temper and acquirements which pecu- 
liarlv fitted him for the character of a Reformer. 

i p • n William Coxe. 

W ithout the fastidious nicety of refined taste and 
elegance, he was endowed with singular acuteness and logical 
dexterity, possessed profound and varied erudition ; and his 
rude, though fervid eloquence, intermixed with the coarsest 
wit and the keenest raillery, was of that species which is best 
adapted to affect and influence a popular assembly. His Latin, 
though it did not rise to the purity of Erasmus and his other 
learned contemporaries, was yet copious, free, and forcible, and 
he was perfectly master of his native tongue, and wrote it 
with such purity, that his works are still esteemed as models 
of style by the German critics. He was animated with an 
undaunted spirit, which raised him above all apprehension of 
danger, and possessed a perseverance which nothing could 
fatigue. He was at once haughty and condescending, jovial, 
affable, and candid in public ; studious, sober, and self-denying 
in private ; and he was endowed with that happy and intuitive 
sagacity which enabled him to suit his conduct and manners to 
the exigency of the moment, to lessen or avert danger by 
timely flexibility, or to bear down all obstacles by firmness 
and impetuosity. His merciless invectives and contemptuous 
irony, were proper weapons to repel the virulence and scurrility 
of his adversaries, and even the fire and arrogance of his 
temper, though blemishes in a refined age, were far from 
being -detrimental in a controversy which roused all the 
passions of the human breast, and required the strongest exer- 

* Biographia Literaria, by S. T. Coleridge, edited by Henry Nelson Coleridge, 
New York, 1848. 



60 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

tions of fortitude and courage. Such were the principles and 
conduct of this extraordinary man, when the enormous abuses 
arising from the sale of indulgences attracted his notice, and 
involved him in that memorable controversy with the Church 
of Rome, for which he seems to have been trained and adapted 
by his temper, studies, occupation, and habits of life." This is 
the language of William Coxe, in his History of the House of 
Austria.* 

Dr. Cox, (of London,) after characterizing the Reformation, 
says : " Amongst the instruments of this remark- 
able change, the name of Martin Luther stands 
pre-eminent. He was not indeed the first or the only advocate 
of this righteous cause, but he was, in many respects, the 
greatest. Luther possessed a vigorous and fearless soul. He 
was qualified to take the lead, and to head opposition in a 
servile age. His mind was incessantly active ; his ardor in 
the pursuit of knowledge and in the propagation of what he 
knew, inextinguishable ; and in the holy war which he under- 
took, having buckled on the armor, he was impatient for the 
conflict and assured of the victory. Never scarcely did the 
hand of God form a fitter instrument to do a greater work."f 
The writings of D'Aubigne, contain some just and beauti- 
ful tributes to the character of Luther. " Luther 
proved, through divine grace, the living influence 
of Christianity, as no preceding Doctor, perhaps, had ever felt 
it before. The Reformation sprang living from his own heart, 
where God himself had placed it." % " Some advised the 
Evangelical princes to meet Charles, sword in hand. But this 
was mere worldly counsel, and the great Reformer Luther, 
whom so many are pleased to represent as a man of violent 
temper, succeeded in silencing these rash counsellors." § "If 

* Hist, of House of Austria, from, the Foundation of the Monarchy by Rudolph 
of Hapsburg, to the Death of Leopold the Second, 1218 to 1792, 3d ed., in 3 vols., 
London, Bohn, 1847, vol. i., p. 383. 

| The Life of Philip Melanchthon, comprising an Account of the most Import- 
ant Transactions of the Reformation, by F. A. Cox, D. D., LL. D., 1st American from 
2d London ed., Boston, 1835. for a Life of Melanchthon worthy of its theme ! 

J D'Aubign^'s Voice of the Church. 

§ Do. Confession of the Name of Christ. 



D'ISRAELL 61 

m the history of the world there be an individual we love 
more than another, it is he. Calvin we venerate more, hut 
Luther we love more. Besides, Lutheranism is of itself dear 
and precious in our eyes, and with reason. In Reform there 
are principles of which we should he afraid, were it not for the 
counterbalance of Lutheranism. . . . Luther and Lutheranism do 
not possess, even in Germany, even in "Wittenberg, friends and 
admirers more ardent than we." * 

Even the Article of the " Dictionnaire Historique," intensely 
Romish as it is, confesses the libellous character of Dictionnaire 
many of the charges which were, for a long time, Histonque " 
current among Papists, in reference to Luther. Especially does it 
mention that favorite one, that the Dispute about Indulgences 
arose from the jealousy of the Augustinians and Dominicans, 
and confesses that it is wholly without foundation. It goes 
so far as to concede that the old story of Luther's being begot- 
ten of an Incubus, is not probable. It concedes to him " a 
powerful imagination, resting on intellect and nurtured by 
study, which made him eloquent, by nature, and insured him 
the concurrence of all who heard the thunders of his declama- 
tion." f 

D'Israeli speaks with considerable severity of Luther's vio- 
lence, but he has the candor to compare with it 
some products of the spirit to which he opposed 
bimself. " Martin Luther was not destitute of genius, of learn- 
ing, or of eloquence ; but his violence disfigured his works 
with invectives and singularities of abuse. It was fortunate 
for the cause of the Reformation, that the violence of Luther 
was softened, in a considerable degree at times, by the meek 
Melanchthon : he often poured honey on the sting inflicted by 
the angry bee. Luther was no respecter of kings — he ad- 
dresses Henry VIII. in the following style : 4 It is hard to say, 
if folly can be more foolish, or stupidity more stupid, than is 
the head of Henry. He has not attacked me with the heart 

* D'Aubigne's Luther and Calvin; or, the True Spirit of the Reformed Church. 
All three of these tracts are in "D'Aubigne and his Writings," with a Sketch, etc., 
by Dr. Baird, New York, 184G. 

f Nouv. Diction. Historique, Caen, 1783, torn, v , p. 382. 



62 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of a king, but with the impudence of a knave. This rotten 
worm of the earth having blasphemed the majesty of my 
king, I have a just right to bespatter his English majesty with 
his own dirt. . . . This Henry has lied.' He was repaid with 
capital and interest by an anonymous reply, said to have been 
written by Sir Thomas More, who concludes by leaving Luther, 
in language not necessary to translate, ' cum suis furiis et 
furoribus, cum suis merdis et stercoribus cacantem cacatum- 
que.' Such were the vigorous elegancies of a controversy on 
the ' Seven Sacraments.' Long after, the Court of Rome had 
not lost the taste of these ' bitter herbs ; ' for in the bull of the 
canonization of Ignatius Loyola, in August, 1623, Luther is 
called monstrum teterrimwm, et detestabilis pestis." — " Calvin was 
less tolerable, for he had no Melanchthon ! His adversaries are 
never others than knaves, lunatics, drunkards, and assassins ! 
Sometimes they are characterized by the familiar appellatives 
of bulls, asses, cats, and hogs ! By him Catholic and Lutheran 
are alike hated. Yet, after having given vent to this virulent 
humor, he frequently boasts of his mildness. "When he reads 
over his writings, he tells us that he is astonished at his for- 
bearance ; but this, he adds, is the duty of every Christian ! 
At the same time he generally finishes a period with — 'Do 
you hear, you dog ? Do you hear, madman ? ' " * 

"Amidst all that Luther has written/' says Doederlein, " I 
know nothing more precious than his sermons and 
his letters. From both of these we can at least 
learn to know the man in his entire greatness, and in accord- 
ance with his genuine character, which superstition and malice, 
and the partizan licentiousness both of friends and foes has 
disfigured ; from both beams forth the most open honesty, the 
firmness of a courage which never quailed, fearlessness of 
judgment, and that spirit which knew so perfectly its aim, 
which preserved its serenity amid all calamities, and changes 
allotted by Providence, and knew how to use to good purpose, 
sport and earnest. His letters especially bear the impress of 
the most artless simplicity, and of the most naive vivacity, 
and apart from their contributions to history, and the attract- 

* Curiosities of Literature, by J. D'Israeli, London, Moxon, 1841, p. 82. 



CYCLOPAEDIA OF BRITISH SOCIETY. 63 

iveness of their contents, are entertaining, rich in instruction, 
and worthy of descending to posterity, were there no other 
reason, to show that immortal man speaking, especially with 
his friends.''* Dupin concedes that Luther's errors, as he 
styles them, obliged the Romanists to study The- 
ology upon right principles ; and confesses that his 
version of the Bible was " elegante" — even while he brings 
the charge that it was " peu litterale " and "peu exacte."f 

Speaking of Luther's reply to Henry VIII. , the author of 
the article in the " Cyclopedia of the Society for the Diffu- 
sion of Useful Knowledge" says : " It must be observed, how- 
ever, that the coarse vituperations which shock the cyclopaedia of 
reader in Luther's controversial works, were not British Society ' 
peculiar to him, being commonly used by scholars and divines 
of the middle ages in their disputations. The invectives of 
Valla, Filelfo,Poggio, and other distinguished scholars, against 
each other, are notorious, and this bad taste continued in prac- 
tice long after Luther, down to the seventeenth century, and 
traces of it are found in writers of the eighteenth, even in 
some of the works of the polished and courtly Voltaire." The 
writer might have added ' down to the nineteenth,' for who 
cannot recall specimens of theological warfare in our own day, 
vastly more offensive to all right feeling, than anything writ- 
ten by Luther. The same writer goes on to say : " Luther 
ranks high among German writers for the vigor of his style, 
and the development which he imparted to his vernacular 
language. Schroeck, Melanchthon, and others have written 
biographies of Luther, and Michelet has extracted a kind of 
autobiography from his works. From these passages the char- 
acter of Luther is clearly deduced, for there was no calcula- 
tion, reserve, or hypocrisy about him. He was frank and 
vehement, and often intemperate. But he was earnest in his 
vehemence ; he really felt the importance of the topics he was 
discussing ; and whether he was right or wrong in his peculiar 

* D. Job. Christoph Doederlein Auserlesene Theologische Bibliothek. Review 
of " Schutzes Luther's Briefe," Erst. Band, Leipzig, 1780, p. 631. 

f Method of Studying Divinity, London, 1720, p. 27. Dissertation Prelimi- 
naire, etc , Paris, 1699, vol. i., p. 726. 



64 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

opinions, lie was a sincere and zealous believer in the Christian 
Revelation. Luther considered religion as the most important 
business of man, and because he considered it as such, he 
wished to ascend to its very source, unalloyed by human 
authority. He contended for the right of every man to consult 
the great book of the Christian Law. The principles of free 
inquiry, which he introduced, led to further results, and grad- 
ually established that liberty of conscience which now exists 
in the Protestant States of Europe. But Luther himself, 
whilst he appealed to the Scriptures against human authority, 
did not for a moment admit of any doubts concerning the 
truth of Revelation. . . . Those who judge of Luther's dispo- 
sition, merely from his controversial style and manner, greatly 
mistake his character. He was a warm-hearted German, kind 
and generous ; he abused and vilified his antagonists the more 
in proportion as they were powerful, but he could feel for the 
unhappy, and he even tendered some consolation to his bitterest 
enemy, Tetzel, when, forsaken by his employers, and upbraided 
as the 'cause of all the mischief, he was in the agonies of death 
and despair. Luther gave that impulse towards spiritual 
philosophy, that thirst for information, that logical exercise 
of the mind, which have made the Germans the most gener- 
ally instructed, and the most intellectual people in Europe. 
Luther was convinced of the necessity of education, as aux- 
iliary to religion and morality, and he pleaded unceasingly for 
the education of the laboring classes, broadly telling princes 
and rulers how dangerous, as well as unjust, it was to keep 
their subjects in ignorance and degradation. He was no courtly 
flatterer ; he spoke in favor of the poor, the humble and the 
oppressed, and against the high and mighty, even of his own 
party, who were guilty of cupidity and oppression. Luther's 
doctrine was altogether in favor of civil liberty, and in Ger- 
many it tended to support constitutional rights against the 
encroachments of the imperial power. Luther's moral cour- 
age, his undaunted firmness, his strong conviction, and the 
great revolution which he effected in society, place him in the 
first rank of historical characters. The form of the monk of 
Wittenberg, emerging from the receding gloom of the middle 



B UN SEN. 65 

ages, appears towering above the sovereigns and warriors, 
statesmen and divines of the sixteenth century, who were his 
contemporaries, his antagonists, or his disciples." * 

" As long as Luther lived he was for peace ; and he suc- 
ceeded in maintaining it ; he regarded it as impious to seek to 
establish the cause of God by force ; and, in fact, during thirty 
years of his life, the principles of the Reformation gained a 
firmer footing, and were more widely propagated, by his un- 
shaken faith and unwearied endeavor, than by all the wars, 
and treaties, and councils since." f Luther "introduced, not 
into Germany only, but into the world, a new and most im- 
portant era, and his name can never be forgotten, while 
anything of principle remains that is deserving of remem- 
brance."^: 

Bunsen contributed the article on Luther, to the eighth 
edition of the Britannica. It opens with these 
words : " Luther's life is both the epos and the 
tragedy of his age. It is an epos because its first part pre- 
sents a hero and a prophet, who conquers apparently insuper- 
able difficulties, and opens a new world to the human mind, 
without any power but that of divine truth, and deep con- 
viction, or any authority but that inherent in sincerity and 
undaunted, unselfish courage. But Lnther's life is also a 
tragedy ; it is the tragedy of Germany as well as of the hero, 
her son ; who in vain tried to rescue his country from un- 
holy oppression, and to regenerate her from within, as a nation, 
by means of the Gospel ; and who died in unshaken faith in 
Christ and in His kingdom ; although he lived to see his be- 
loved fatherland going to destruction, not through, but in spite 
of the Reformation. 

" Both parts of Luther's life are of the highest interest. In 
the epic part of it we see the most arduous work of the time 
(the work for two hundred years tried in vain by Councils, 

* Vol. xiii., pp. 206, 207, (London, 1839, fol.) 

•J- Encycl. Americ, vol. viii. , p. 153, Philadelphia, 1848. The article "Refor- 
mation " in this work is one of the best in it. It is the article " Luther," how- 
ever, from which we quote. 

JRees' Cyclop., American edition, Philadelphia, vol. xxii., art. Luther. 
5 



66 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

and by prophets and martyrs, with and without emperors, 
kings, and princes,) undertaken by a poor monk alone, who 
carried it out under the ban both of the Pope and the Em- 
pire. In the second, we see him surrounded by friends and 
disciples, always the spiritual head of his nation, and the 
revered adviser of princes, and preacher of the people ; living 
in the same poverty as before, and leaving his descendants as 
unprovided for as Aristides left his daughter. So lived and 
died the greatest hero of Christendom since the Apostles ; the 
restorer of that form of Christianity which now sustains 
Europe, and (with all its defects) regenerating and purifying 
the whole human race ; the founder of the modern German 
language and literature ; the first speaker and debater of his 
country ; and at the same time, the first writer in prose and 
verse of his age." 

The relations of Erasmus and Luther form an interesting: 
chapter in the history of the Reformation. With all the cau- 
tion of Erasmus, and the difference of spirit and 

Erasmus. ... , . 

principle in the two men, he could not help feeling 
a profound though uneasy reverence for Luther. In writing 
to Cardinal Wolsey, in 1518, when Luther's name was just 
rising, he says : " As to Luther, he is altogether unknown to 
me, and I have read nothing of his except two or three pages. 
His life and conversation , is universally commended ; and it is 
no small prejudice in his favor, that his morals are unblama- 
ble, and that Calumny itself can fasten no reproach on him. 
If I had really been at leisure to peruse his writings, I am not 
so conceited of my own abilities, as to pass a judgment upon 
the performances of so considerable a divine. I was once 
against Luther purely for fear lest he should bring an odium 
upon literature, which is too much suspected of evil already. 
Germany hath produced some promising youths, who have 
eloquence and learning, and of whom she will one day, in my 
opinion, have reason to boast, no less than England can now 
boast of her sons."* In a letter to Melanchthon, (1519,) he 
says : " All the world is agreed amongst us in commending his 
moral character. He hath given us good advice on certain 

* Quoted by Jortin, "Life of Erasmus," London, 1728, 4to, p. 129. 



ERASMUS. 67 

points ; and God grant that his success may be equal to the 
liberty which he hath taken." * In reply to a letter from 
Luther himself, Erasmus calls him his dearest brother in 
Christ, speaks of the excitement his works had produced at 
Louvain, and that he had advised the Divines of that Univer- 
sity to answer them instead of railing against them. Though 
he had told them that he had not read those works, yet he 
owns that he had perused part of his Commentaries upon the 
Psalms, that he liked them much, and hoped they might be 
very serviceable. " There is a Prior of a Monastery at Ant- 
werp, a true Christian, who loves you extremely, and was, as 
he relates, formerly a disciple of yours. He is almost the only 
one that preacheth Jesus Christ, whilst others preach human 
fables, and seek after lucre. The Lord Jesus grant you, from 
day to day, an increase of his Spirit, for his glory and for the 
public good." f In a letter to the Elector of Mentz, (1519,) 
he had the courage to apologize openly enough for Luther ; 
declines taking sides, but lashes the monks, and plainly justi- 
fies the beginnings of the Reformation. \ In the same year, 
he wrote a letter to Frederic of Saxony, highly favorable to 
Luther. § As the storm advanced, however, Erasmus grew 
more timid and sensitive to the reproaches which the enemies 
of Luther directed against all who showed any moderation or 
candor in regard to him. When the thunder of the Yatican. 
rolled over Luther's head, Erasmus thought all was ruined, 
and, in a very oracular manner, told his friends that all the 
disaster came of not following his advice, to be mild, concili- 
ating, and cautious, to be every thing, in short, which all 
men now see would have left the Church and the world pre- 
cisely where they were. Erasmus spent the rest of his life, in 
the miserable condition of every man who is striving to com- 
pound between his convictions and his fears, too acute to miss 
the truth, and too selfish to confess it. He did not take open 
grounds against the Evangelical doctrines ; even the apologetic 
letter he wrote the Pope, showed that he was not very cordially 

* Quoted by Jortin, Life of Erasmus, London, 1728, 4to, p. 156. 

f Do., p. 166. % Do., p. 202. 

\ Seckendorf, Historia Lutheranismi, 1. i., p. 96. 



68 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

on the Romish side. He declined the task of refuting Luther, 
for which his second reason was : " it is a work above my abil- 
ities," and the fourth : that he is not willing to endure the 
resentment it would occasion. " By the little of Luther's 
writings which I have rather run over than examined, I 
thought that I could discern in him natural talents, and a 
genius very proper to explain the holy Scriptures according to 
the manner of the fathers, and to kindle those sparks of Evan- 
gelical doctrine, from which common custom, and the doctrines 
of the schools upon speculations more subtile than useful, had 
departed too far. I heard men of great merit, equally respect- 
able for learning and piety, congratulate themselves for having 
been acquainted with his books. I saw that the more unblam- 
able their behavior was, and the more approaching to Evangel- 
ical purity, the less they were irritated against him. His 
moral character was recommended even by some who could not 
endure his doctrine. As to the spirit with which he was ani- 
mated, and of which God alone can judge with certainty, T 
chose rather, as it became me, to think too favorably than too 
hardly of it. And, to say the plain truth, the Christian world 
hath been long weary of those teachers, who insist too rigidly 
upon trifling inventions and human constitutions, and begins 
to thirst after the pure and living water drawn from the 
sources of the Evangelists and Apostles. For this undertaking 
Luther seemed to me fitted by nature, and inflamed with an 
active zeal to prosecute it. Thus it is that I have favored 
Luther ; I have favored the good which I saw, or 'imagined 
that I saw in him." * In the same tone is his letter to the 
Archbishop of Mentz, (1520.) In it, he shows his prevailing- 
spirit of temporizing, which reaped its fit reward in the hatred 
of the Romish and the contempt of the Protestant party. 
" Let others affect martyrdom ; for my part, I hold myself 
unworthy of that honor." " Luther," said Erasmus to the 
Elector Frederic, (1520,) f " hath committed two unpardonable 
crimes ; he hath touched the Pope upon the crown, and the 

* Letter to Campegius, 1520, quoted in Jortin's Life, p. 232. 
j- " When Charles V. had just been made Emperor, and was at Cologne, the 
Elector Frederick, who was also there, sent to Erasmus, desiring that he would 



ERASMUS. 69 

monks upon the belly." He tben added, in a serious manner, 
that the doctrine of Luther was unexceptionable. He solicited 
the ministers of the Emperor to favor the cause of Luther, 
and to persuade him not to begin the exercise of his imperial 
dignity with an act of violence. To Frederic he presented the 
following Axioms for his consideration : ' That only two Uni- 
versities had pretended to condemn Luther ; ' ' That Luther 
made very reasonable demands, by offering to dispute publicly 
once more. That, being a man void of ambition, he was the 
less to be suspected of heresy.' The Pope's agents, finding 
Erasmus so obstinately bent to defend Luther, endeavored to 
win him over by the offer of abbeys, or bishoprics : but he 
answered them,* "Luther is a man of too great abilities for 
me to encounter ; and I learn more from one page of his, than 
from all the works of Thomas Aquinas." The Lutherans 
acknowledged their obligations to Erasmus for these favors, by 
a picture, in which Luther and Hutten were represented car- 
rying the Ark of God, and Erasmus, like another David, 
dancing before them with all his might, f 

That Erasmus went thus far, is wonderful ; that he would 
have gone much farther, if he had simply acted out his con- 
victions, is certain. "But if Luther," he says, (1521,) "had 
written everything in the most unexceptionable manner, I 
had no inclination to die for the sake of the truth. Every 
man hath not the courage requisite to make a martyr ; and I 
am afraid, that if I were put to the trial, I should imitate St. 
Peter." % "I follow the decisions of the Pope and Emperor 

come to his lodgings. Erasmus accordingly waited on him. It was in Decem- 
ber, and they conversed at the fireside. Erasmus preferred using Latin instead 
of Dutch, and the Elector answered him, through Spalatine. When Erasmus was 
desired freely to give his opinion concerning Luther, he stood with lips com- 
pressed, musing in silence for a long time ; whilst Frederic, as was his wont in 
earnest, discourse, fixed his eyes upon him in an intense gaze. At last he broke 
the silence with the words we have quoted. The Elector smiled when they were 
uttered, and in after time, not long before his death, recalled them. Erasmus 
afterwards begged Spalatine to return the manuscript of the axioms, lest it might 
be used to his hurt." — Seckendorf. Jortin. 

* Melchior Adami, Vita Lutheri. 

f Critique de l'Apol. d'Erasme, quoted by Jortin, p. 242. Seckendorf gives 
the same facts in still ampler detail. 

J Letter to Pace, quoted in Jortin, p. 273. 



70 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

when they are right, which is acting religiously ; I submit to 
them when they are wrong, which is acting prudently, and I 
think that it is lawful for good men to behave themselves thus, 
when there is no hope of obtaining any more." * " There is a 
certain innocent time-serving and pious craft." f Lamartine 
says : " ISTo ffreat man is cunning." This was a truth to which 
Erasmus does not seem to have attained. On the train of cir- 
cumstances which led to the controversy between Erasmus and 
Luther, on free will, it is no place here to dwell. Erasmus 
wrote to prove the freedom of the will, though his very doing 
so, he confesses, was a proof that his own will was not free. 
Through Luther he struck at the Reformation itself. "Luther 
replied, and had unquestionably the best of the argument." % 
" I count this," says Yaughan, speaking of Luther's reply, " a 
truly estimable, magnificent and illustrious treatise." " Luther 
did not rejoin to Erasmus' twofold reply : he well knew that 
Erasmus was fighting for victory, not for truth, and he had 
better things to do than to write hooks merely to repeat unan- 
swered arguments." § 

Gelzer, who wrote the sketches which accompany Konig's pic- 
tures, says of Luther : "If we recall, among other great names 
in German history, the Reformers Melanchthon and 
Zwingle, the Saxon Electors, Frederick the Wise and 
John the Constant, Gustavus Adolphus and Frederick the 
Great ; or among intellectual celebrities, Klopstock and Lessing, 
Hainan and Herder, Gothe and Schiller ; or turn to the great 
religious reformers of the last centuries, Spener, Franke, Zinzen- 
dorf, Bengel, and Lavater, they all exhibit many features of rela- 
tionship with Luther, and in some qualities may even surpass 
him, but not one stands out a Luther. One is deficient in the 
poetic impulse, or the fulness and versatility of his nature ; 
another wants his depth of religious feeling, his firmness of 
purpose and strength of character ; others again, want his elo- 
quence or influence over his contemporaries. Luther would 

* Jortin, p. 274. f Erasmus, quoted by Jortin. % Eees 1 Cycl., art. Erasmus. 

$ Martin Luther on the Bondage of the Will, translated by E. T. Vaughan, 
London, 1823, preface, xlix. Vaughan gives a sketch of Luther's Life, and a 
view of his character, a mere abridgment of Dean Milner's continuation of his 
brother's Church History. 



LUTHER'S TOLERATION. 71 

not have been Luther, without these three leading features : 
his strong faith ; his spiritual eloquence ; and firmness of char- 
acter and purpose. He united — and this is the most extra- 
ordinary fact connected with him — to large endowments of 
mind and heart, and the great gift of imparting these intellec- 
tual treasures, the invincible power of original and creative 
thought, both in resisting and influencing the outer world.'"' 

" The history of the Reformation, which Guericke presents 
in his admirable compend, is in keeping with his 

' * . . -, Guericke. 

strong, consistent Lutheran position, and though 
it does not contain any distinct, elaborate analysis of Luther's 
character, presents a just view of his career and his qualities." * 
The Twelfth Lecture of Guizot,f is devoted to the Reforma- 
tion. In a note at the close of the chapter, the 
remark of Robertson is quoted, that " Luther, Cal- 
vin, Cranmer, Knox, the founders of the Reformed Church, in 
their respective countries, inflicted, as far as they had power 
and opportunity, the same punishments which were denounced 
by the Church of Rome upon such as called in question any 
article of their creed." Upon this passage of Robertson, 
SmytheJ remarks, that "Luther might have been favor- 
ably distinguished from Calvin and others. There 
are passages in his writings, with regard to the 
interference of the magistrate in religious concerns, that do 
him honor ; but he was favorably situated, and lived not to 
see the temporal sword at his command. He was never tried." 
The closing words of Smythe are in defiance of the facts in 
the case. More than any private man in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, Luther had the temporal sword at his command. He 
was tried. He was a shield to his enemies, both in person and 
doctrine, when the penalties of the law were hanging over 
them. Single-handed he protested against resort to violence. 
He averted war when the great Protestant princes were eager 

* Handbuch der Kirchengeschichte von H. E. F. Guericke, 9te Aufl., Leipzig, 
1867, vol. iii., 1-778. 

f General History of Civilization in Europe, from the Fall of the Roman Em- 
pire to the French Revolution, 3d American from the 2d English edition, with 
occasional notes by C. S. Henry, D. D., New York, 1846, p. 248-268. 

| Lectures on Modern History, Am. ed., p. 262. 



Luther's Toler- 
ation. 



72 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

for it. He had a great, loving heart, as full of affection and 
forbearance for man, even when straying, as it was full of 
hatred to error in all its forms. Bancroft makes a more correct 
statement of Luther's true principles in regard to persecution: * 
" Luther was more dogmatical than his opponents ; though the 
deep philosophy with which his mind was imbued, repelled the 
use of violence to effect conversion in religion. He was wont 
to protest against propagating reform by persecution and mas- 
sacres ; and with wise moderation, an admirable 
knowledge of human nature, a familiar and almost 
ludicrous quaintness of expression, he would deduce from his 
great principle" of justification by faith alone, the sublime doc- 
trine of freedom of conscience." To this is added the note: 
" Nollem vi et csede pro evangelia certari," (I could not wish 
any to contend for the Gospel by violence and slaughter.) Lu- 
ther's Seven Sermons — delivered in March, 1522. " Predigen 
will ichs, sagen will ichs, schreiben will ichs, aber zwingen, 
dringen mit Gewalt will ichs Memand ; denn der Glaube will 
ich ungenoethigt und ohne Zwang angenommen werden." (I 
will preach, I will talk in private, I will write, but I will force, 
I will coerce no man : for I will have the faith accepted, without 
constraint and without force.) "We have a testimony to the 
same effect, in the History of Germany ,f by Kohleausch : 
" Shortly previous to the commencement of the sanguinary war 
of religion, Luther, the author of the grand struggle, breathed 
his last. He had used all the weight of his power and influence 
in order to dissuade his party from mixing external force with 
that which ought only to have its seat within the 
calm profundity of the soul ; and, indeed, as long as 
he lived, this energetic Eeformer was the warm advocate for the 
maintenance of peace. He repeatedly reminded the princes that 
his doctrine was foreign to their warlike weapons, and he beheld 
with pain and distress, in the latter years of his life, the grow- 
ing temporal direction given to the Holy Cause, and the in- 
creasing hostility of parties, whence he augured nothing good." 
In that immortal work of John Gerhard (theologorum prin- 
ceps, tertius a Luthero et Chemnitio, orbis Evangelici Atlan- 

* Hist. United States, i. 274. f Lond., 1844, p. 402. 



GERHARD— HAGENB A OB. 73 

tis), the ' Confessio Catholica,' in which, the concessions of 
Romish writers are employed in defence of the truth,* he 
answers in full all the calumnies directed against the life, and 
the attacks on the doctrines of Luther. He shows 

Gerhard. 

that Luther was actuated by no blind fury against 
the Church of Rome, but distinguished in it the precious from 
the vile, and that he was an instrument of God endowed with 
extraordinary qualities for an extraordinary work. In show- 
ing this, he cites at large the opinions of Mellerstadt, Staupitz, 
the Emperor Maximilian, Yon Hutten, Erasmus, Frederick, 
Elector of Saxony, Langius, Fisher f (Bishop of Rochester and 
Chancellor of the University of Cambridge), who afterwards 
wrote against Luther, Mosellanus, Cellarius, Ulner, Podusca, 
Phsenicius, Schirner, Rosdialovinus, Margaret, Archduchess 
of Austria, Emser, Kigelin, Masius, and Severus. % These 
persons were all in the Church of Rome at the time that these 
favorable testimonies were given. Portion by portion is taken 
up by Gerhard, and disposed of with most eminent judgment, 
sustained by incredible learning. 

" It may be said," is the remark of Hagenbach, " that Mar- 
tin Luther became emphatically the reformer of the 
German Church, and thus the reformer of a great 
part of the Universal Church, by his eminent personal character 
and heroic career, by the publication of his theses, by sermons 
and expositions of Scripture, by disputations and bold contro- 
versial writings, by numerous letters and circular epistles, by 
advice and warning, by intercourse with persons of all classes of 
society, by pointed maxims and hymns, but especially by his 
translation of the Sacred Scriptures into the German language. § 

*" Doctrina Catholica et Evangelica, quam Ecclesiae Augustanse Confessioni 
addictse profitentur." — From the title of the "Confessio Cathol., Frankfurti et 
Lipsise, 1679," folio. 

f In a letter to Erasmus he commends Luther highly, and among other things 
speaks of him as " Scripturarum ad miraculum usque peritum." 

J Preceptor of Ferdinand, author of the distich, 
" Japeti de gente prior majorve Luthero 
Nemo fuit, nee habent secla futura parem." — Conf. Cathol., p. 58 seq. 

\ Compendium of the History of Doctrines, by K. R. Hagenbach, Dr. and 
Professor of Theology in the University of Basle, translated by Carl W. Buch, 



74 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

It is . . unjust . . to maintain that Luther's profound and 
dynamic interpretation of the sacrament, which on that very 
account was less perspicuous and intelligible, had its origin in 
nothing hut partial stupidity or stubbornness. The opinion 
which each of these reformers (Zuinglius and Luther) enter- 
tained concerning the sacraments, was most intimately con- 
nected with his whole religious tendency, which, in its turn, 
stood in connection with the different development of the 
churches which they respectively founded." 

Hallam has offered, in his "Introduction to the Literature 
of Europe," a work acceptable in the great dearth, 
in our language, of all books of the kind, but 
neither worthy, in all respects, of the subject nor of the reputa- 
tion of its author. For too much of it is obviously, in the most 
unfavorable sense, second-hand, and even in its dependence, it 
does not rest on a thorough acquaintance with the best sources 
whence opinions can be had ready-made. Would it not be 
thought preposterous for a man to write an introduction to 
classic literature who knew nothing of the Latin language, 
and depended for his information on the translations existing 
in his mother tongue? Hallam has been guilty of a greater 
absurdity than this ; for in total ignorance of the most import- 
ant language in Europe, he has pretended to give a view of its 
literature — a literature almost none of which, comparatively, 
exists, even in the imperfect medium of translations into Eng- 
lish. He displays everywhere, too, an ignorance of theology 
which makes his views on theological literature not only inad- 
equate, but often absurd. There is, too, an air of carelessness 
in his treatment of it, which seems, at least, to involve that 
he feels little interest in it, or that a man of his position in 
general letters is condescending, in touching such matters at 
all. It is one of the poorest affectations of men of the world 
to talk of theology, in a tone of flippancy, as if it were too 

Edinburgh, Clark, 1847, vol. ii., 15G, (Am. ed., edited by Dr. H. B. Smith, 
1862.) Hagenbach's work has an occasional slip. An illustration lies just under 
our eye: "Nor did the authors of the Symbolical Books differ from Luther, on 
Transubstantiation." Very true, but half of Hagenbach's proof is a citation from 
the Smalcald Articles, i. e. he proves that Luther did not differ from Luther. 



HALLAM. 75 

vague for a thinker, too dull to inspire enthusiasm. They 
speak and write of it, as if they were with difficulty repressing 
a yawn. But Hallam is not guilty of mere listlessness in his 
treatment of theological topics. He is a partisan, and a very 
ill-informed one. 

Especially is his account of the Eeformation and of Luther 
full of ignorance and full of prejudice. He seems to have pre- 
pared his mind for a just estimate of Luther by reading, with 
intense admiration, Bossuet's " Variations, " though, as he tells 
us, with great impartiality, " It would not be just probably to 
give Bossuet credit in every part of that powerful delineation 
of Luther's theological tenets." He charges on the writings 
of Luther, previous to 1520, various " Antinomian paradoxes," 
but yet he has the candor to say : " It must not be supposed 
for a moment that Luther, whose soul was penetrated with a 
fervent piety, and whose integrity, as well as purity of life, are 
unquestioned, could mean to give any encouragement to a 
licentious disregard of moral virtue, which he. valued as in 
itself lovely before God as well as man, though in the technical 
style of his theology he might deny its proper obligation. But 
his temper led him to follow up any proposition of Scripture 
to every consequence that might seem to result from its literal 
meaning." 

" Every solution of the conduct of the reformers must be 
nugatory except one, that they were men absorbed by the con- 
viction that they were fighting the battle of God." — "It is 
hardly correct to say of Luther, that he erected his system on 
the ruins of Popery, for it was rather the growth and expan- 
sion in his mind of one positive dogma, justification by faith, 
in the sense in which he took it, (which can be easily shown 
to have preceded the dispute about indulgence,) that broke 
down and crushed successively the various doctrines of the 
Romish Church."* 

* Literature of Europe, vol. i., p. 166. Hallam, putting a different construc- 
tion from Le Clerc on some theological expressions, adds: "But of course my 
practice in these nice questions is not great." Vol. ii., p. 41, n. After adjust- 
ing in the text the comparative merits of half a dozen theologians, he says he 
has done it "in deference to common reputation," "for I am wholly ignorant 
of the writings of all." Page 287. 



76 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

" A better tone " (in preaching) " began with Luther. His 
language was sometimes rude and low, but persuasive, artless, 
powerful. He gave many useful precepts,'as well as examples, 
for pulpit eloquence." — "In the history of the Eeformation, 
Luther is incomparably the greatest name. We see him, in the 
skilful composition of Robertson, the chief figure of a group 
of gownsmen, standing in contrast on the canvas with the 
crowned rivals of France and Austria, and their attendant 
warriors, but blended in the unity of that historic picture. It 
is admitted on all sides, that he wrote his own language with 
force, and he is reckoned one of its best models. The hymns 
in use with the Lutheran Church, many of which are his own, 
possess a simple dignity and devoutness never probably excelled 
in that class of poetry, and alike distinguished from the poverty 
of Sternhold or Brady, and from the meretricious ornament of 
later writers." — " It is not to be imagined that a man of his 
vivid parts fails to perceive an advantage in that close grap- 
pling, sentence by sentence, with an adversary, which fills most 
of his controversial writings ; and in scornful irony he had no 
superior."* 

* Literature of Europe, vol. i., p. 197. The great currency which Hallam's 
name gives to any view he expresses, would make it well worth while for some 
one competent to the task, to review all his charges against Luther, and posi- 
tive Evangelical Protestantism, as has been done, so ably, on some points, by 
Archdeacon Hare. An instance of the knowing air with which a man ignorant 
of his subject may write about it, occurs in the following sentence (i. 278): 
" After the death of Melanchthon, a controversy, began by one Brentius, relating 
to the ubiquity, as it was called, of Christ's body, proceeded with much heat." 
" One Milton, a blind man," has grown into a classic illustration of happy appre- 
ciation of character. "One Brentius" ought to contest a place with it. Bren- 
tius, whose name, in the department of polemic theology, is mentioned next that 
of Luther and of Melanchthon in the early history of the Reformation — Bren- 
tius, who stood so high in the judgment of Luther himself, one of the acutest 
judges of character, to whom Luther applied terms of commendation which 
seemed so near an approach to flattery, that he felt it necessary to protest that 
he is speaking in godly sincerity, whom he compared, in relation to himself, to the 
"still small voice following the whirlwind, earthquake, and fire" — Brentius, 
whose contributions to sacred interpretation not only stood in the highest repute 
in his own land, but several of which had sufficient reputation to lead to their 
translation in England, (as, for instance, his "Arguments and Summaries," 
translated by John Calcaskie, London, 1550; his Commentary on Esther, by John 
Stockwood, London, 1554 ; his Homilies and Exegesis on John, by Richard Shirry, 



ARCHDEACON HARE. 77 

Next to tlie Milners,* who were the first English writers 
who gave a large and just view of Luther's character and Lu- 
ther's work, is to he placed Archdeacon Hare, who in a note to 
his " Mission of the Comforter," a note which 

. , , . ' -, -p •, .. Archdeacon Hare. 

grew into a volume, vindicated Luther against 
"his recent English assailants." f First of these is Hall am ; 
then follow Newman, "Ward, and Dr. Mill. The last reply is 
to Sir William Hamilton, who has left an indelible disgrace 
upon his name by the manner and measure of his attack upon 
Luther. He has largely drawn his material from secondary 
sources, wholly unworthy of credit, and has been betrayed 
into exhibitions of ignorance so astounding as to excite sus- 
picion that Sir William was rather a large reader than a 
thorough scholar. His fierceness of polemic, which his greatest 
admirers lament, was never more manifest nor more in- 
excusable than it is here. Archdeacon Hare's vindication is 
everywhere successful, and not unfrequently overwhelming. 
He has won for himself the right of being listened to respect- 
fully, even reverently, in his estimate of Luther:;}: "As he has 
said of St. Paul's words, his own are not dead words, but liv- 
ing creatures, and have hands and feet. It no longer surprises 
us that this man who wrote and spoke thus, although no more 
than a poor monk, should have been mightier than the Pope, 
and the Emperor to boot, with all their hosts, ecclesiastical and 
civil — that the rivers of living water should have swept half 
Germany, and in the course of time the chief part of Northern 
Europe, out of the kingdom of darkness into the region of 
Evangelical light. No day in spring, when life seems bursting 
from every bud, and gushing from every pore, is fuller of life 
than his pages ; and if they are not without the strong breezes 

London, 1550 ;) and whose writings are still consulted with delight by the scholar, 
and republished — such a man could not have had such a seal of insignificance 
attached to his name by any other than a writer ignorant at least of this part of 
his theme. 

* Hist, of Church of Christ, by Joseph Milner, with add. by Is. Milner, Lond. 
(1819) 1847, 4 vols. 8vo. 

f Vindication of Luther, 2d ed., Lond., 1855. 

% Mission of the Comforter, from 2d Lond. ed., Boston, 1854, pp. 281, 402, 
403. 



78 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of spring, these too have to bear their part in the work of 
purification." — "How far superior his expositions of Scripture 
are, in the deep and living apprehension of the primary truths 
of the Gospel, to those of the best among the Fathers, even of 
Angus tin ! If we would do justice to any of the master minds 
in history, we must compare them with their predecessors. 
When we come upon these truths in Luther, after wandering 
through the dusky twilight of the preceding centuries, it seems 
almost like the sunburst of a new Revelation, or rather as if 
the sun, which set when St. Paul was taken away from the 
earth, had suddenly started up again. Verily, too, it does us 
good, when we have been walking about among those who 
have only dim guesses as to where they are, or whither they 
are going, and who halt and look back, and turn aside at every 
other step, to see a man taking his stand on the Eternal Rock, 
and gazing steadfastly with unsealed eyes on the very Sun of 
righteousness." 

Hase, most eloquent, most condensed, most happy in giving 
the cream of things of all the writers of his school, shows a just 
and appreciating spirit in all he has said of Luther. Not only 
in his general allusions to the primal spirit of the Reforma- 
tion embodied in Luther, his correct deduction of that great 
movement, neither from the skeptical nor scientific tendency, 
but from faith and holy desire, but still more fully 
in the happy outline of Luther's career in his 
Church history, has he shown that as far as one occupying so 
different a theological position from Luther can thoroughly 
understand him, he does so. Not only as a fine illustration of 
our theme, but as a highly characteristic specimen of the work 
of Hase, to which we have just alluded, we give the whole of 
his chapter on " Luther's death and public character." "In 
the last year of his life, Luther, worn out by labor and sick- 
ness, took such offence at the immorality and wanton modes 
at "Wittenberg, that he left it, (1545,) and only consented to 
return at the most urgent supplications of the University and 
Elector. He saw a gloomy period impending over the land of 
his fathers, and longed to depart in peace. Over his last days 
still shone some of the brightness of his best years — the 



HASE. 79 

words bold, child-like, playful, amid exalted thoughts. Hav- 
ing beeu called to Eisleben to act as arbitrator in settling some 
difficulty of the Counts of Mansfeld, he there, on the night 
of February 18th, 1546, rested in a last calm and holy sleep. 
The mutations of the times on whose pinnacle he stood, im- 
parted to his life its stronger antitheses. He had regarded 
the Pope as the most holy, and most Satanic father. In his 
roused passions emotions had stormily alternated. The free- 
dom of the Spirit was the object of his life, and yet he had 
been jealous for the letter. In trust on all the power of the 
Spirit, he had seized the storm of revolution by the reins, and 
yet on occasion had suggested that it would be well if the 
Pope and his whole brood were drowned in the Tyrrhene Sea. 
But throughout he had uttered with an unbounded ingenuous- 
ness his convictions, and was a stranger to every worldly 
interest. With a powerful sensuousness, he stood fast rooted 
in the earth, but his head reached into heaven. In the crea- 
tive spirit, no man of his time was like him ; his discourses 
were often rougher than his own rough time seemed to ap 
prove, but in popular eloquence his equal has never arisen in 
Germany. From anguish and wrath grew his joy in the con 
test. Where he once had discovered wrong, he saw nothing 
but hell. But his significance rests less upon those acts by 
which he searched and destroyed — others could more easily 
and more readily tear themselves away from the old Church- 
it rests much more upon his power of building up, on his earn 
est full faith and love ; though in hours of gloom, through 
the temptations of Satan, he imagined that he had lost G-od, 
and Christ, and all together. Especially, in opposition to his 
antagonists, did he believe, and declare without reservation, 
that he was a chosen instrument of God, known in heaven, on 
earth, and in hell. But with himself, personally considered, 
he would have nothing to do ; he would recognize no doctrine 
of Luther, and his sublime trust in God pointed not to his 
personal delivery from dangers, but to the faith that God could 
every day create ten ' Doctor Martins.' Insipid objections and 
narroAv vindications are forgotten ; such a man belongs not to 
one party, but to the German people and to Christendom." 



80 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

The distinctive characteristics of Gothe and Herder dis- 
played themselves in the difference of their feelings towards 
Luther. " What seemed to Gothe narrow and partial, Her- 
der called noble and philanthropic ; wmile, on the contrary, 
what Herder admired as the infinitude of a great idea, reveal- 
ing itself to man in various godlike emanations — 
in the valor of the hero, the wisdom of the legisla- 
tor, the inspiration of the poet, or the events of a world — this 
sort of elevation moved Gothe so little, that such characters 
as Luther and Coriolanus excited in him a sort of uncomforta- 
ble feeling, which could be satisfactorily explained only on the 
hypothesis that their natures stood in a mysterious sort of 
opposition to his. Gothe's genius and disposition were for 
the beautiful; Herder's for the sublime." 

Herder has given, in his writings, the most unmistakable 
evidence of his admiration of Luther. There is no author 
whom he cites so frequently, so largely, and so admiringly, as 
Luther. "Luther has long been recognized as teacher of the 
German nation, nay, as co-reformer of all of Europe that is 
this day enlightened. He was a great man and a great patriot. 
Even nations that do not embrace the principles of his religion 
enjoy the fruits of his Reformation. Like a true Hercules, he 
grappled with that spiritual despotism which abrogates or 
buries all free, sound thought, and gave back to whole nations 
the use of reason, and in that very sphere where it is hardest 
to restore it — in spiritual things. The power of his speech 
and of his honest spirit united itself with sciences, which 
revived from him and with him ; associated itself with the 
yearnings of the best thinkers in all conditions, who, in some 
things, had very different views from his own, and thus formed 
for the first time a popular literary public in Germany and the 
neighboring countries. ISTow men read what never had been 
read ; now men learned to read who had never learned before. 
Schools and academies were founded, German hymns were 
sung, and preaching in the German language ceased to be rare. 
The people obtained the Bible, possessed at the very least the 
Catechism ; numerous sects of Anabaptists and other errorists 
arose, many of which, each in its own way, contributed to the 



HERDER. 81 

scientific or popular elucidation of contested matters, and thus, 
also, to the cultivation of the understanding, the polishing of 
language and of taste. Would that his spirit had been fol- 
lowed, and that, in this method of free examination, other 
objects had been taken up which did not lie immediately in 
his monastic or church sphere ; that, in a word, the principles 
on which he judged and acted had been applied to them. But 
what avails it to teach or reproach times gone by ? Let us rise 
and apply his mode of thought, his luminous hints, and the 
truths uttered for our time, with equal strength and naivete. I 
have marked in his writings a number of sentences and ex- 
pressions in which (as he often called himself) he is presented 
as Ecclesiastes, or the preacher and teacher of the German 
nation." 

" Of Luther as a preacher," Herder says : " He spoke the 
simple, strong, unadorned language of the understanding ; he 
spoke from the heart, not from the head and from memory. 
His sermons, therefore, have long been the models, especially 
of those preachers in our church who are of stable minds." 

Speaking of the contents of the Psalms, he says, in the same 
beautiful letters from which we have just quoted: " I am sure 
I can give you no better key to them than the exquisite preface 
of Luther to this, his darling book. He will tell you what is 
in them, how to apply them, and turn them to use." 

Speaking of the romantic and moonshiny way of preaching 
which prevailed in his time, he closes a most severe paragraph 
with the exclamation : "0 Luther ! when we recall thee and 
thy pure, solid language, comprehended by all ! " 

" Would you hear the nature, power, and necessity of this liv- 
ing principle of faith, treated in a manner living and clearly 
defined, read Luther's writings. He shows a hundred times 
and at large, how little is contained in that beggar's bag of a 
gradual reform of our bad habits ; how little of Christianity 
there is in it, and of how little worth it is before God. But he 
himself, even at that early day, mourned that so few formed a 
right conception of that which he called true, life-restoring 
faith, how few knew how to give it, in accordance with his 
meaning, its practical power ! " " The doctrine of justification 

6 



82 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

is so closely associated with, that of faith, that one must stand 
or fall with the other. On this, also, the corner-stone of 
Lntheranism, pre-eminently hold fast, I beg you, by Luther's 
writings. I think it was Spener who had felt, with reference 
to this system, a doubt which, it seemed to him, nothing could 
overthrow ; he read Luther's writings and his doubts vanished. 
But, as I have said, Luther already mourned that not all com- 
prehended him, and whilst every one was crying out about 
faith, justification, and good works, few had really grasped his 
meaning and his spirit ; the consequences, both, immediate and 
long after his death, were melancholy enough. When in this 
matter you need instruction, or long to have difficulties re- 
solved, go to this living man of faith himself, this legitimate 
son of Paul. In his writing is so much sound sense, with such 
strength of spirit and fervor of an honest heart, that often, 
when worn out with the frigid refinings and speculations of 
a more recent date, I have found that I was revived by him 
alone." "Conjoin with his biography, his own writings, (0 
that we had a complete collection of them in the languages 
in which he wrote them !) read these, and you will know him 
differently, for he gives a picture of himself in every line." 

" May the great Head of the Church revive in this land 
(Germany) — the cradle of the Reformation — the spirit of the 
reformers, so that the mantle of Luther may fall upon his pro- 
fessed followers and admirers, that all who pretend to teach 
may be taught of God, men of faith, learning, research, and 
above all, of ardent and unfeigned piety." 

Kahnis : * " Nothing but the narrowness of party can deny 
that there are respects in which no other reformer can bear 
comparison with Luther as the person of the Re- 
formation. The Romanists do but prejudice their 
own cause, when they undervalue a man who, with nothing 
but the weapons of the Spirit, shook to its lowest depths the 
Roman catholic en ; tire Church of the Middle Ages. Every Cath- 
judgment. stoi- olic who claims to be a lover of truth, should concur 
in the judgment of Count Stolberg, who, though 
he deserted Protestantism for the Catholic Church, says: 

* Ueb. d. Principien d. Protestantismus, Leipz., 1865. 



F. V. RAUMER'S REPLY TO PALAVICINI. 83 

' Against Luther's person I would not cast a stone. In him I 
honor, not alone one of the grandest spirits that have ever lived, 
but a great religiousness also, which never forsook him.'' 
There have indeed been Roman Catholics, who did not breathe 
toward Luther the spirit of Schlegel and Stolberg, and from 
one of the greatest of these, whose sketch is peculiarly full of 
genius, and has been called " an official one," by F. Y. Raumer, 
we quote. Palavicini, the historian of the Council 

x < Palavicini. 

of Trent, thus characterizes Luther : "A fruitful 
genius, but one that produced bitter rather than ripe fruits ; he 
was rather the abortive birth of a giant, than a healthy child 
born in due time. A mighty spirit, bat better fitted for tear- 
ing down than for building up. His learning was more like a 
drenching rain which beats down all before it, than like the 
soft shower of summer, beneath which nature grows fruitful. 
His eloquence was in its language coarse, and crude in its mat- 
ter, like the storm which blinds the eyes with the dust it drives 
before it. Bold in beginning strife, no man was more timor- 
ous when danger was near ; his courage was, at best, that of a 
beast at bay. He frequently promised to be silent, if his oppo- 
nents would be silent too — a proof that he was determined by 
earthly influences. He was protected by the princes, only 
because they coveted the Church's goods ; he was a disturber 
of the Church, to the injury of others, and without benefit to 
himself. History will continue to name him, but more to his 
shame than to his renown. The Church, the vine, has been 
pruned, that it may shoot forth with fresh life : the faithful 
have been separated from the seditious. Opposed to him 
stands the major part — the more noble, the more moderate, 
the more holy." 

To this no better answer can be furnished than that which 
the great historian and statesman, F. Y. Raumer, has given : 
" To this judgment of Palavicini," he says, " after a conscientious 
testing of all the facts, we cannot assent — but are constrained 
to acknowledge the truth to be this: A fruitful F . v . Raumers 
genius, whose fruits could not all come to a mellow reply to paiavi- 
ripeness, because they were prematurely shaken down 
by storms. A mighty spirit, who helped to arouse the storms ; 



84 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

but, had not the building been undermined by fearful abuses, a 
purification might have been possible without overthrowing it. 
Only because the' builders who were called to the work of 
reform, not only refused to perform it, but increased the evil, 
did he become their master ; and with success grew his boldness 
or his faith in his divine vocation, and his wrath against his 
opponents. In his contest with the Papacy he placed in the 
van Evangelical freedom of faith, and this is the source of 
Protestantism ; in the establishment of his Church he often 
was willing to shackle thought, lost his own clearness of percep- 
tion, and became intolerant. But his hardest and least becom- 
ing language appears mild in comparison with the blood-thirsty 
intolerance of his opponents, mild in comparison with the heads- 
man's axe and the stake. A noble eloquence supplanted the 
unintelligible prattle of the schools ; through him Germany 
once more learned to speak, the German people once more 
to hear. He who is displeased with his style, or with his mat- 
ter, must yet confess that his writings reveal everywhere the 
inspiration of the fear of God and the power of faith. Luther 
never dissimulated. Persuasions, promises, threats had no 
power to shake his rock-iirm will, his indomitable purpose; and 
the seeming self-will and severity connected with this arose, 
at least, from no commonplace and perverted character. ~No 
man ever grasps the whole truth, in perfect clearness ; but few 
have more earnestly striven to attain it, and with more perfect 
self-renunciation confessed it, than Luther. Among his oppo- 
nents not one can be compared with him in personal qualities : 
with all his faults, he remains greatest and most memorable 
among men ; a man in whose train follows a whole world of 
as}3iration, effort, and achievement." 

In affinity with that of Yon Paumer is the estimate of 
Panke: " Throughout we see Luther directing his weapons on 
both sides — against the Papacy, which sought to 
reconquer the world then struggling for its eman- 
cipation — and against the sects of many names which sprang 
up beside him, assailing Church and State together. The 
great Reformer, if we may use an expression of our days, was 
one of the greatest Conservatives that ever lived." 



WIELAND— STAN G — MELANCHTHON. 85 

Ernst Karl Wieland opens the last paragraph of his Charac- 
teristics of Luther with the words: " Such was he, 

Wieland. 

so great in whatever aspect we view him, so worthy 

of admiration, so deserving of universal gratitude ; alike great 

as a man, a citizen, and a scholar." 

Stano*, to whom we are indebted for one of the "best lives 
of Luther, thus closes his biography : " We stand before the 
image of the great Reformer with the full conviction that 
between the first century, when Christianity appeared in its 
youth, and the sixteenth, when it obtained the 
maturity of its riper age, not one of our race has 
appeared, in whom the ever-creative spirit of God, the spirit 
of light and of law, has found nobler embodiment, or wrought 
with richer sequence." 

But among all the tributes which the centuries have laid at 
the feet or on the tomb of Luther, none are more touching 
than the words in which Melanchthon showed that 

Melanchthon. 

Luther's death had brought back, in all its tender- 
ness, the early, pure devotion. Melanchthon, the Hamlet of 
the Reformation, shrinking from action into contemplation, 
with a dangerous yearning for a peace which must have been 
hollow and transient, had become more and more entangled in 
the complications of a specious but miserable policy which he 
felt made him justly suspected by those whose confidence in 
him had once been unlimited. Luther was saddened by Me- 
lanchthon's feebleness, and Melanchthon was put under restraint 
by Luther's firmness. Melanchthon was betrayed into writing 
weak, fretful, unworthy words in regard to Luther, whose sur- 
passing love to Melanchthon had been sorely tested, but had never 
yielded. But death makes or restores more bonds than it breaks. 
When the tidings of Luther's death reached Wittenberg, Me- 
lanchthon cried out in anguish : u my father, my father, 
the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof! " — tributary 
words from one of the greatest, to the greatest. He was gone 
of whom Melanchthon, cautious in jDraise, an( j measured in 
language, had said, from a full heart : " Luther is too great, 
too wonderful for me to depict in words." — " If there be a man 
on earth I love with my whole heart, that man is Luther." 



86 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

And, again : " One is an interpreter ; one, a logician ; another, 
an orator, affluent and beautiful in speecli ; but Luther is all 
in all — -whatever he writes, whatever he utters, pierces to the 
soul, fixes itself like arrows in the heart — he is a miracle 
among men." 

What need we say more, after such eulogies ? 

The greatness of some men only makes us feel that though 
they did well, others in their place might have done just as 
they did : Luther had that exceptional greatness, which con- 
vinces the world that he alone could have done the work. He 
was not a mere mountain -top, catching a little earlier the 
beams which , by their own course, would soon have found the 
valleys ; but rather, by the divine ordination under which he 
rose, like the sun itself, without which the light on mountain 
and valley would have been but a starlight or moonlight. He 
was not a secondary orb, reflecting the light of another orb, 
as was Melanchthon, and even Calvin ; still less the moon of 
a planet, as Bucer or Brentius ; but the centre of undulations 
which filled a system with glory. Yet, though he rose won- 
drously to a divine ideal, he did not cease to be a man of men. 
He won the trophies of power, and the garlands of affection. Po- 
tentates feared him, and little children played with him. He 
has monuments in marble and bronze, medals in silver and gold ; 
but his noblest monument is the best love of the best hearts, 
and the brightest, purest impression of his image has been 
left in the souls of regenerated nations. He was the best 
teacher of freedom and of loyalty. He has made the righteous 
throne stronger, and the innocent cottage happier. He knew 
how to laugh, and how to weep ; therefore, millions laughed 
with him, and millions wept for him. He was tried by deep 
sorrow, and brilliant fortune ; he begged the poor scholar's 
bread, and from Emperor and estates of the realm received an 
embassy, with a prince at its head, to ask him to untie the 
knot which defied the power of the soldier and the sagacity 
of the statesman ; it was he who added to the Litany the words : 
" In all time of our tribulation, in all time of our prosperity, 
help us good Lord ;" but whether lured by the subtlest flattery 



SUMMARY OF LUTHER'S CHARACTER. 87 

or assailed by the powers of hell, tempted with the mitre, or 
threatened with the stake, he came off more than conqueror in 
all. He made a world rich forevermore, and, stripping himself 
in perpetual charities, died in poverty. He knew how to com- 
mand — for he had learned how to obey. Had he been less 
courageous, he would have attempted nothing ; had he been 
less cautious, he would have ruined all : the torrent was resist- 
less, but the banks were deep. He tore up the mightiest evils 
by the root, but shielded with his own life the tenderest bud 
of good ; he combined the aggressiveness of a just radicalism 
with the moral resistance — which seemed to the fanatic the pas- 
sive weakness — of a true conservatism. Faith-inspired, he was 
faith-inspiring. Great in act as he was great in thought, proving 
himself fire with fire, " inferior eyes grew great by his exam- 
ple, and put on the dauntless spirit of resolution." The world 
knows his faults. He could not hide what he was. His trans- 
parent candor gave his enemies the material of their misrepre- 
sentation ; but they cannot blame his infirmities without bear- 
ing witness to the nobleness which made him careless of appear- 
ances in a world of defamers. For himself, he had as little of 
the virtue of caution as he had, toward others, of the vice of 
dissimulation. Living under thousands of jealous and hating 
eyes, in the broadest light of day, the testimony of enemies but 
fixes the result : that his faults were those of a nature of the 
most consummate grandeur and fulness, faults more precious 
than the virtues of the common great/ Four potentates ruled 
the mind of Europe in the Reformation, the Emperor, Erasmus, 
the Pope, and Luther. The Pope wanes, Erasmus is little, the 
Emperor is nothing, but Luther abides as a power for all time. 
His image casts itself upon the current of ages, as the moun- 
tain mirrors itself in the river that winds at its foot — the 
mighty fixing itself immutably upon the changing. 



III. 

LUTHER'S TRANSLATION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.* 



THE author's best vindication of his vocation to a work 
must, in the nature of the case, be the work itself. The 
fact of success seems to dispense with the necessitv 

Luther's call- x ^ 

ing as a trans- of any argument, m advance, as to his fitness for 
lator of the scrip- ^e labor on which he entered. "We need no a 

tures. 

priori proof that Milton had a vocation as a 
poet, or Bacon as a philosopher, or Gerhard as a theologian. 
To argue it, is to argue in the sunlight the question of the 
sun's adaptation for shining. Luther's translation of the Bible 
is itself the invincible proof of his vocation to the work of 

* The most important works on Luther's Bible are the following: 
I. — In defence or criticism of his translation. 

Andreje: Erinerung v. d. Teutschen. Bibl. Dollmetsch. Tubing. 1564. 

Traub : Avisa o. Warming von Luther's Teutsch. Bib. Ingolst. 1578. 

Wicelii: Annotationes. Leipz. 1536. 

Zanger: Examen Versionis. Maintz. 1605. 

Beringer: Rettung. 1613. 

Raithii: Vindicise. 1676. 

A. H. Francke : Obs. Biblicee. 1695. 

Hallbauer: Animadversiones in Nov. Germ. Version. Jena: 1731. 

Zehner: Probe. 1750. 

Marheinecke : Relig. Werth. d. Bibeliibersetz. Luther. Berl. 1815. 

Stier: Altes und Neues. 1828. (In defence of Meyer's Revision.) 

" Darf Luther's Bibel, etc. 1836. 
Grashof : D. M. L's. Bibeliiber. in ihr. Verhalten. z. d. Bediirfn. d. Zeit. 1835. 
Hope: Wurdig. d. Luthersch. Bibel. Verdeutscht mit Rucks, d. Alt. u. Neuen 

Uebersetzung. Niirnb. 1847. 
Rossler: Be Vers. Luth. caute emend. 1836. 

88 



LUTHER AS A TRANSLATOR. 89 

preparing it. It shines its own evidence into the eyes of every 
one who opens it. 

Nevertheless, it is not without historical interest, little as it 
is necessary, logically, to look at the evidence of Luther's fitness 
for the work. Some of the facts which naturally attract our 
attention here, are the following: 

I. Luther was well educated as a boy. He went to school in 
Mansfeld until he reached his fourteenth year ; thence he 
went to Magdeburg ; four years he spent at Eisenach, under 
the tuition of a teacher of whom Melanchthon testifies that 
in the grammatical branches, the very ones which were so 
largely to become useful to Luther as a translator, he had no 
superior. Here he finished his school-days proper — already 
as a boy, by his great proficiency, giving indications of extra- 
ordinary talents and industry. Melanchthon says of him at 
this era : "As he had great genius, and a strong predispo- 
sition to eloquence, he speedily surpassed the other youths in 
the fulness and richness of his speech and of his writing, alike 
in prose and verse." Even as a boy, he was already marked 
out as a translator. 

II. Luther received, a thorough collegiate education. In 1501 
he repaired to the college at Erfurt, where he was matricu- 
lated during the presidency of Truttvetter, whom he loved 
and venerated as a man and a teacher, and where he faithfully 
used all the advantages which surrounded him. 

II. — Bibliography and History. 

Mayer, J. F. : Hist. Vers. Luth. 1701. 

Kraft: (1705-1734.) 

Zeltner; Historie. 1727. Bertram: Giese : Nachricht. (1771.) 

Palm: Historie — Gotze. 1772. 

" De Codicibus. 1735. 
Gozen's : Sammlung. 1777. Vergleichung der Uebersetz. v. Luther, von 

1517 — b. 1545. Erst. St. 1777; 2d, 1779. Neue Entdeckungen, 1777. 
Panzer: Entwurf. 1791. 
Gcetz : Ueberblicke. 1824. 
Schott: Geschichte. 1835. Bindseil. (1841.) 
Reuss: Gesch. d. Heil. Schriften. N. T. 1860. 
Fritzsche : Bibeliibersetzungen Deutsch. 1855. (in Herzog's Real Enc. 

in.' 337.) 
Popular Histories : Kuster (1824) ; Weideman (1834) ; K.Mann (1834); 

Krafft, C. W. (1835.) 



90 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

III. Luther was a devoted student of the Hebrew and Greek. 
In 1505, after his entrance into the cloister, Luther devoted 
himself, with that earnestness which marked all he did, to the 
study of Hebrew and Greek. He had skilful teachers in both 
languages. As professor and preacher in Wittenberg, he con- 
tinued both studies with great ardor. In Hebrew, Luther 
regarded the illustrious Reuchlin, the Gesenius of that day, as 
his teacher, compensating for the want of his oral instruction 
by a thorough use of his writings. But Luther was not of 
the race of sciolists who think that, because books can do 
much, they can do everything. He knew the value of the 
living teacher. To obtain a more thorough mastery of Hebrew, 
he availed himself of the instruction of his learned colleague, 
Aurogallus, the Professor of the Oriental languages at Witten- 
berg. When he was at Kome, in 1510, he took lessons in He- 
brew from the erudite Rabbin Elias Levita. Luther was master 
of the Hebre# according to the standard of his time, as his 
contemporaries, and learned men of a later date, among them 
Scaliger, have acknowledged. "If Luther," says Fritzsche,* 
" was not the greatest philologist of his time, he was yet suf- 
ficiently learned to see for himself, and to be able to form an 
independent judgment. What he lacked in philological pro- 
fundity was compensated for, in part, by his eminent exegetical 
feeling, and by the fact that he had lived himself completely 
into the spirit of the Bible." Luther's first master in Greek 
was Erasmus, through his writings ; his preceptor, both by 
the book and the lip, was Melanchthon. These were the 
greatest Greek scholars of the age. Luther happily styles 
Melanchthon, "most Grecian." 

IV. With genius, the internal mental requisite, and learn- 
ing, the means by which that genius could alone be brought 
to bear on the work of translation, Luther united piety. His 
soul was in affinity with the spirit of the Bible. He was a 
regenerate man. A De Wette may produce a translation 
which the man of taste admires, but he cannot translate for 
the people. We would not give a poem to a mathematician 
for translation, whatever might be his genius ; still less would 

* Herzog's Real Encyc, iii. 340. 



NEW TESTAMENT— PROTESTANT VERSION 91 

we give the words of the Spirit to the hand of a translator 
who had not the "mind of the Spirit." Luther, the man of 
faith, of fervent prayer, the man who was as lowly toward 
God as he was inflexible toward men — Luther was called to 
that work of translation in which generations of the past 
have found a guide to heaven, and for which millions of our 
race, in generations yet to come, will rise up and pronounce 
him blessed. 

V. All these gifts and graces as a translator found their 
channel in his matchless German. In this he stood supreme. 
The most German of Germans, towering above the great, yet 
absolutely one of the people, he possessed such a mastery of 
the tongue, such a comprehension of its power, such an ability 
to make it plastic for every end of language, as belonged to no 
other man of his time — to no other man since. His German 
style is the model of the scholar, and the idol of the people. 

The plan of a great human life is not something which the 
man makes — it is something which makes the man. The 
wide and full-formed plans which men make before The first Prot 
they begin to act, are always failures. The achieve- estant version of 
ments of the great masters in the moral revolutions ment . itseariy 
of our race have invariably, at first, had the sem- llistor y- 
blance of something fragmentary. The men themselves were 
not conscious of what their own work tended to. Could they 
have seen the full meaning of their own first acts, they would 
have shrunk back in dismay, pronouncing impossible those 
very things with the glorious consummation of which their 
names are now linked forever. So was it with Luther in the 
work of the Reformation. The plan of it was not in his mind 
when he began it. That plan in its vastness, difficulties, and 
perils would have appalled him, had it been brought clearly 
before him. So was it also in regard to his greatest Reform- 
atory labor — the translation of the Bible. At a period when 
he would have utterly denied his power to produce that very 
translation which the genius and learning of more than three 
centuries have failed to displace, he was actually unconsciously 
taking the first step toward its preparation. Like all great 
fabrics, Luther's translation was a growth. 



92 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

The memorable year 1517, the year of the Theses, was also 
the year of Luther's first translation of part of the Holy Scrip- 
tures. It is earlier, however, than the Theses, or the contro- 
versy with Tetzel, and yet its very preface implies the Prot- 
estant doctrine of the right of the illumined private judg- 
ment of Christians. It embraced only the Seven Penitential 
Psalms, (vi., xxxii., xxxviii., li., on., cxxx., cxliii.) He used 
in its preparation the Latin translation of Jerome, and another 
by Eeuchlin, which had appeared at Tubingen in 1512. In 
the Annotations, however, he frequently refers to the Hebrew. 

Between 1518 and the appearance of his New Testament 
complete, in 1522, Luther translated eleven different portions 
of the Bible. In 1518 appeared two editions of a translation 
and exposition of the Lord's Prayer. The first edition was 
issued without Luther's consent, by Schneider, one of his 
pupils. Luther himself published the second edition, which 
deviates very much from the other. It appeared with this 
title : " Exposition, in German, of the Lord's Prayer, for the 
simple Laity, by Dr. Martin Luther, Augustinian Monk, of 
Wittenberg. Not for the learned." The same year he trans- 
lated the CX. Psalm. In 1519 appeared the Gospel for the 
Festival of St. Peter and St. Paul, and the Prayer of Manas- 
seh. In 1520 he published his first Catechetical work, em- 
bracing the Ten Commandments. 

In 1521, Luther was seized, on his way from Worms to 
Wittenberg, and carried to the castle of the Wartburg, where 
he remained from May 4th, 1521, to March 6th of the fol- 
lowing year. These months of calm, and of meditation, led 
to the maturing of his plans for the promotion of the Reform- 
ation, and among them, of the most important of the whole, 
the giving to the people the Word of God in their own tongue. 
Before his final leaving the Wartburg, Luther, in disguise, 
made his way to Wittenberg, and spent several days there, 
known only to a very few of his most trusted friends. During 
that mysterious and romantic visit, they may have urged upon 
him personally this very work of translation. He had been 
urged to this work, indeed, before. " Melanchthon," says he, 
"constrained me to translate the New Testament." Various 



FIRST DRAFT, 93 

fragments of translation were published during the earlier 
part of Luther's sojourn in his Patmos, but not until his 
return from Wittenberg did he begin the first grand portion 
of his translation of the Bible as a whole. 

Luther translated the New Testament in the first draft in about 
three months. It sounds incredible, but the evidence places it 
beyond all doubt. He was only ten months at the Wartburg ; 
during this period he wrote many other things ; did a good deal 
of work on his Postils, and lost a great deal of time by 
sickness, and in other ways, and did not commence his 
New Testament until his sojourn was more than 

n First draft ' 

half over. JN ever did one of our race work with 
the ardor with which Luther wrought when his whole soul 
was engaged, and never, probably, was that great soul so 
engaged, so fired, so charmed with its occupation, as in this 
very work of translating the New Testament. The absurd 
idea that Luther was assisted in this first work by Melanch- 
thon, Cruciger, Amsdorf, and others, has arisen from confound- 
ing with this a different work at a different period. In this, 
he was alone, far from the aid, far from the co-operating sym- 
pathy of a single friend. 

He did not translate from the Yulgate, though he used that 
ancient and important translation with sound judgment. In 
his earlier efforts as a translator we see more of its influence 
than at a later period. This influence was partly, no doubt, 
unconscious. His thorough familiarity with the Vulgate 
would shape his translation to some extent, even when he was 
not thinking of it. But the Yulgate was of right 
the most important aid, next to the sacred text 
itself. Consequently, though Luther grew less and less depend- 
ent upon it, and saw more and more its defects, he never ceased 
to value it. He well knew, too, that many of the most serious 
faults of the received form of the Yulgate were the results of 
the corrupted text, the state of which before the critical labors 
which ran through the sixteenth century, was almost chaotic. 
"We will give a few illustrations of the fact that in certain cases 
Luther followed the Yulgate, in his earliest translation, with- 
out warrant from the Greek text. We will distribute our 



94 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

illustrations under these heads: I. of Additions ; II. of Omis- 
sions ; III. of Renderings; IV. of Headings, in which Luther 
follows the Vulgate when the Vulgate does not represent the 
Greek text — or at least that text .to which alone Luther had 

access. 

I. — Additions of the Vulgate and of Luther to the Eras- 
mian Text. (1516, 1519.) 
Mark vi. 2. Were astonished, Luther adds : Seiner Lehre : 
so Coverdale : at his learning. 
" xvi. 9. Luther adds : Jesus. 

" xii. 9. Luther adds : Alle : all the whole world : 
Cranmer. 
1 John v. 12. He that hath the Son, Luther adds : Gottes 
— of God. 

II. — Omissions of the Vulgate and Luther from the Erasmian 
text. These are few, for the sins of the Vulgate 
against the pure text are most frequently those of addi- 
tion. 
Matt. i. 18. Omit: Jesus. 
Matt. v. 22. Whosoever is angry with his brother, omit: 

without a cause. 
Matt. vi. 4. Omit : himself. 

III. — Renderings in which the Vulgate and Luther depart 
from the Greek text. 

Matt. x. 42. Little ones, Luther renders : one of the least. 
So Coverdale. 

Mark xv. 4. Behold how many things they witness 
against thee, Luther renders : Wie hart sie 
dich verklagen. Coverdale : How sore they 
lay to thy charge. 

1 Cor. xv. 44. There is a natural body, and there is a 
spiritual body, Luther renders : Hat man ein 
naturlichen Leib, so hat man auch einen 
geistlichen Leib. Coverdale : If there be a 
natural body, there is a spiritual body also. 

1 Thess. i. 7. Renders : an example : Vulg. : ensample. 



FIRST DRAFT. 95 

IV. — Readings in which Luther follows the Vulgate. 
Matt. iii. 8. For : fruits, Luther reads : fruit. 
Matt. x. 25. For: Beelzeboul, reads: Beelzebub. 
John xi. 54. For : Ephraim, reads : Ephrem. 
Acts ix. 35. For : Saron, reads : Sarona. 
Acts xiii. 6. For : Bar Jesus, reads : Bar Jehu. 
Eph. iii. 3. For : he made known, reads: was made known. 
Eph. v. 22. For : "Wives submit yourselves, reads : Let the 

wives be subject to. 
1 Tim. iii. 16. For : God was manifest in the flesh, reads : 
Which was manifest in the flesh (in all the 
early editions). 
Heb. iv. 1. For: any of you, reads: any of us. So Tyn- 

dale and Coverdale. 
Heb. ix. 14. For : your consciences, reads : our con- 
sciences. 
Rev. xiv. 13. For : I heard the voice, reads : the voice 
which I heard. 
A number of these adhesions to the Vulgate are to be traced 
to his judgment that it here represented a purer text than 
that of Erasmus.* Luther used the Basle Edition of 1509. 

To have rendered even the Vulgate into the noble German 
which Luther used would have been a great task. The very 
defects of the old German versions from the Vulgate which 
did not prevent their wide circulation, is a pathetic proof of 
the hungering of the people for the bread of life. But it was 
characteristic of Luther's originality, vigor, and clearness of 
perception, that he at once saw — what now seems so obvious, 
but which had not been seen for ages — that to give the people 
what they needed, required more than a translation of a trans- 
lation. If we remember that in our own day the general feel- 
ing is, that the new translations to be prepared for the Bible 
Society should be conformed to our English version, and not 
independent versions from the original, we have before us a 
fact which may help us, though very imperfectly, to realize 
how daring it seemed, in Luther's time, to prepare a trans- 

* Palm, De Codicibus : quibus Lutherus usus est. Hamburg,1735. 
Palm, Historic Halle, 1772, p. 245. 



96 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

lation for the people from the original, involving, as it did, the 
idea that the Vulgate, embalmed as it was in the reverence of 
ages, was not in all respects a pure representation of the Word 
of God. When Luther's translation appeared, there was no 
point which the Romanists made with more frequency, vio- 
lence, and effectiveness, than that it ignored the Vulgate ; 
though the reason for which the Vulgate was ignored was 
that it departed from the Greek. 

There is no decisive reason for thinking that Luther used 
any manuscripts of the Greek text. The Greek texts which 
had been published, or at least printed, when Luther was 
engaged in his translation of the New Testament, were : 

1. The Complutensian, folio, printed 1514 ; not published 
till 1523. Though doubts have been expressed as to Luther's 

having used the Complutensian, to which some 

G /f k T te ^ ts force is given by his nowhere citing it, yet Mo- 
used by Luther. o ^ o > */ 

lanchthon, his great co-worker in the New Testa- 
ment, cites it during Luther's lifetime. The copy sent to the 
Elector of Saxony (six hundred were printed in all) was placed 
in the library at Wittenberg, whence it was removed, two 
years after Luther's death, to Jena. His not citing it is no 
evidence over against the irresistible presumption of the case ; 
and Krell (1664) asserts positively that Luther was familiar 
with the Complutensian.* 

2. The first Erasmus, 1516, folio. 

3. The Aldine, 1518, folio; follows for the most part the 
first Erasmus, even in its blunders, yet has some peculiarities 
worthy of note, as in James iv. 6. The Septuagint, in this 
edition, was used by Luther. 

4. The second Erasmus, 1519, folio. 

5. The Gerbelius, based on the second Erasmus and the 
Aldine, 1521, 4to. 

6. The third Erasmus, 1522, folio. 

It is evident that Luther's choice was confined at first to 
the Editions 2-5. The Complutensian and Erasmus 3 appeared 
too late for his earliest New Testament translation. 

We might illustrate Luther's adherence to the Erasmian 

* Iiopf, Wiirdigung. 45. 



GREEK TEXTS USED BY LUTHER. 97 

Greek text over against the Vulgate : I. In his additions from 
the Greek of what the Vulgate omits. II. In his omissions, 
following the Greek, of what the Vulgate adds. III. Of read- 
ings in which he does the same. IV. Of renderings in which 
he forsakes the Vulgate for the Greek. The last head we 
defer for the present. 

I. — Additions from the Greek where the Vulgate omits. 
Matt. ii. 18. adds : lamentation. Tyndale : mourning. 
" vi. 4, 6, 18. adds: openly. 

" vi. 13. adds: For thine is the kingdom and the 
power and the glory forever. So Coverdale. 
Tyndale omits. 
Matt. vi. 14. adds : their trespasses. 
" vi. 25. adds : or what ye shall drink. 
" vi. 32. adds: heavenly. 
Mark vi. 11. adds : Verily I say unto you, it shall be more 
tolerable city. 

II. — Omissions, following the Greek, where the Vulgate adds. 

Matt. vi. 15. omits : your trespasses. 
" vi. 21. omits : he shall enter into the kingdom of the 

heavens. 
" vii. 29. omits: their; and, Pharisees. 

Mark xi. 26. omits : But if ye do not . . . trespasses. 

Luke xvii. 36. omits: Two men shalUbe in the field . . . 
and the other left. 

John xix. 38. omits : He came therefore and took the body 
of Jesus. 

Jas. iv. 6. omits : Wherefore he saith, God resisteth .... 
the humble. All the editions of Erasmus 
and Gerbelius omit these words, but the Asu- 
lanus (Aldine) of 1518 has them, and so the 
Complutensian. Tyndale 1. Co v. omit. 

1 John v. 7. omits : There are three that bear record . . . 
and the Holy Ghost. This text Erasmus 
Ed. 1, 2, Asulanus, Gerbelius omit. Eras- 
mus : Ed. 3-5 has it, though he did not be- 
7 



98 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

lieve it to be genuine. The Complutensian 
has it with slight variations. Luther rejected 
it on critical grounds, and it did not appear 
in any of his Bibles published in his lifetime. 
The Codex Amiatinus of the Yulgate omits 
it. Tyndale has it, either from the Yulgate 
or Erasmus 3. Tynd. 2. and Cov. put it in 
brackets. 
Eev. xii. 10. omits: the accuser of our brethren. 

" xviii. 23. omits: and the light of a candle . . . thee. 

" xix. 9. omits : the marriage. 

III. — Of Readings in which he follows the Greek. 

Matt. v. 4, 5. reads in order of Greek. Yulgate puts 5 
first. 
" v. 47. reads: publicans; Yulgate: heathen. 
" vi. 1. reads : alms ; Yulgate : righteousness. 
" vi. 5. reads : thou pray est ; Yulgate : ye pray. 
Acts xiii. 33. reads : first Psalm ; so Tynd., Cov. ; Yulgate 

reads : second Psalm. 
Eom. xv. 2. reads : Every one of us ; Yulgate : of you. 
Eev. ii. 13. reads : in my days ; Yulgate : in those days. 
" v. 12. reads : riches and wisdom ; Yulgate : divinity 
and wisdom. 

The most important peculiarities of Luther's first version, as 
we see by this minute examination, are solved at once by a 
comparison of it with the text of Erasmus. The differences 
in the four editions — two of them reprints of Erasmus — are 
not, for the most part, important ; 2 and 3 may be considered 
as in the main one text, and 3 and 4 another. A minute 
examination seems to indicate that Luther had them all, and 
used them all ; but the second Erasmus seems, beyond all 
doubt, to have been his chief text, though the first Erasmus, 
and the Gerbelius have both been urged by scholars for the 
post of honor. 

Of the Aldine edition of Erasmus, 1518, there is a copy, in 
fine condition, in the City Library of Philadelphia. The 



ERASMUS. 99 

author has all the later editions mentioned, except the first 
Erasmus and the Complutensian,* in his own library. The 
admirable edition of the New Testament by Yan Ess f gives 
all the various readings of Erasmus and the Compluteusian, in 
the best form for comparison with each other and the Vulgate. 
Mill, and Wetstein, and Bengel also, give these various read- 
ings, but not in so convenient a shape. The Complutensian 
readings are presented very fully also in Scrivener's Plain In- 
troduction to the Criticism of the ~New Testament, (Cam- 
bridge, 1861,) pp. 349-358. But the most desirable modern 
edition for the collation of the Complutensian text is that of 
Gratz, N. T. Textum Grsecum ad exemplar Complutense, ed. 
Nova Mogunt., 1827, 2 vols. 8vo. 

It may be interesting to present a few illustrations of the 
variations between the Complutensian (1514) and the first 
Erasmus (1517), comparing both, with Luther and our Author- 
ized Version. 







Complutensian, 


First Erasmus, 


Luther, 1522. 


Auth. Engl., 






1514. 


1516. 




1611. 


I. 


Matt. i. 14 


Acheim 


Achen 


Achin. 


Achim 


II. 


" ii. 6 


For 


omits 


For (Denn) 


for 


III. 


" ii. 6 


Shall come 


shall come to me 


sol mir kom- 


shall come 


IV 


" ii. 11 


they saw 


they found 


men 
they found 


they saw 


V. 


" iii. 8 


fruit 


fruits 


fruit 


fruits 


VI. 


" ii. 11 


the Holy Ghost 


the Holy Ghost 


m. d. h. g. u. 


w. t. h. G. and 








and with fire 


mit feur 


with fire. 


VII. 


" iv. 15 


land of N. 


Nepthalim 


Nepthalim 


land of Nep- 
thali 


VIII. 


17 


From that 


and from that 


From that 


From that 


IX. 


18 


he walking 


Jesus walking 


Jesus walking 


Jesus walking 


X. 


" v. 12 


Your reward 


Our reward 


Your reward 


your reward 


XI. 


27 


It was said 


was said by (or 


said to (zu) 


said by (or to) 








to) them of old 


them of old 


them of old 








time 


time. 


time 


XII. 


47 


friends 


brethren 


Briidern 


brethren 



In these twelve examples, Luther agrees with the Complu- 
tensian in four cases ; the Authorized Version agrees in seven. 
Erasmus retained in all his editions his readings Nos. 1, 3, 4, 

* The writer has examined the Complutensian Polyglot in the library of the 
Theological Seminary at Princeton, and the New Testament, formerly the prop- 
erty of Judge Jones, of Philadelphia, now in the choice collection of Professor 
Charles Short, of New York. 

f Tubingen, 1827. 



100 



CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 



5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12. He coincides in editions 2, 3, 4, 5 with the 
Complntensian in Nos. 2, 8, 10. 

We will now illustrate the different readings of the five edi- 
tions of Erasmus : 







Erasmus 1, 


Erasmus 2, 


Ei-asm us 3, 


Erasmus 4, 


Erasmus 5, 


Luther, 1522. 






1516. 


1519. 


1522. 


• 1527. 


1535. 




I. 


Matt. vi. 14 


our 


our 


our 


your 


your 


Your, as 4, 5 


II. 


" vi. 24 


Mamon 


Mamon 


Mammon 


Mammon 


Mammon 


Mammon, as 3, 

4,5 
You, as 3, 4, 5 


III. 


" vi. 26 


we 


we 


you 


you 


you 


IV. 


" viii.25 


you 


you 


us 


us 


us 


us, as 2, 3, 4, 5 


V. 


" x. 8 


raise the dead, 
cleanse lepers 


Cleanse le- 
pers, raise 
the dead 


as 2 


as 2 


as 2 


Cleanse thele- 
peres, raise the 
dead, as 2, 3, 4, 5 


VI. 


" xiii. 8 


of the Sabbath 


of the S. also 


as 2 


as 2 


as 2 


as 2, 3, 4, 5 


VII. 


" xiii. 27 


the tares 


tares 


the tares 


the tares 


the tares 


as 1, 3,4,5 






us 


us 


you 


you 


us 


us, as 1, 2, 5 


VIII. 


" xiii. 56 


envies 


Murders, 


as 2 


as 2 


as 2 


as 2, 3, 4, 5 


IX. 


" xv. 19 


(phthnoi) 


(phonoi) 










X. 


" xv. 36 


And having 
given thanks 


Om: and 


as 2 


as 2 


as 2 


as 2, 3, 4, 5 



This table illustrates the lack of accuracy in the printing of 
Erasmus — shows that Luther was not misled by typographical 
errors, and that he used the later editions in each case. In 
none of these instances does he follow a reading for which 
there is no authority but the first of Erasmus. 

The order of the books in Luther's New Testament varied 
somewhat from that of the Vulgate and Erasmus ; which is 
the one retained in our Authorized Version. Luther places Peter 
and John immediately after Paul's Epistles. Then come Hebrews, 
James, Jude, and Revelation. He based his arrangement on the 
relative clearness of the canonical authority of the books. His 
order is followed by Tyndale (1526), and in all the editions 
which bear the name of Tyndale, Matthews, or Rogers. It is 
also the order in Coverdale's Bible. This is one proof, among 
, , a ffreat number, of the laro-e influence of Luther 

Order of the o o 

Books of the New upon those versions. The " Great Bible " of 1539, 
the Cromwell Bible, frequently called the Cranmer, 
restores the arrangement of the Vulgate — and in this is fol- 
lowed by the Genevan, Bishops, and the Authorized. Luther 
bestowed great care upon the division of the text into para- 
graphs, and as a result of this there are some changes in the 
division into chapters, which had been made very imperfectly in 
the Vulgate, in the thirteenth century. JSTo German lew 
Testament appeared in Luther's lifetime with the division into 



REVISION— PUBLICATION. 101 

verses. Their place, nearly to the close of the century, was 
partly supplied by capital letters, dividing the page at regular 
intervals. There were Introductions to the New Testament, 
and to some of the books: marginal notes and parallel passages. 
The same spirit which had impelled Luther to prepare this 
translation made him eager to have it as speedily as possible 
in the hands of the people. This desire, no less than the neces- 
sity of quelling the uproar and arresting the ruin which the 
fanaticism of Carlstadt was bringing about, led to his night 
from his prison, and his final return to Wittenberg, 

Revision 

(March 14, 1522.) Here, in the house of Amsdorff, 
especially with the counsel and aid of Melanchthon, he revised 
his translation with great care.* He interested in the work 
his friend Spalatin, the chaplain, librarian, and private secre- 
tary at the court ; he solicited from him aid in suggesting apt 
words, " not words of the court or camp, but simple words ; 
for this book wishes to be luminous in simplicity." He ob- 
tained through him the privilege of an inspection of the Elec- 
toral jewels, that he might more accurately render the names 
of the gems in the twenty-first chapter of Revelation. They 
were sent to Luther, and returned by him through Cranach, 
the great painter. 

After a thorough revision, Luther put his E"ew Testament 
to press, urging on the work of printing with all his energies. 
Three presses were kept going, from which were thrown off 
ten thousand sheets daily. Luther complained of the slow- 
ness of the progress. The steam-presses of our own day would 
hardly have worked rapidly enough for him. The first edition 
embraced probably three thousand copies, and appeared about 
September 21st, 1522. So eagerly was it received, 

-i -rx -. • • pit Publication. 

that in December another edition came forth. It 
was hailed with delight wherever the German tongue was 
used, and within three months of its appearance an edition 
was issued at Basel by Petri. It woke a thrill of rapture 
everywhere among those who loved the Word of God. None 
received it more eagerly than the pious women of the time. 
The people and the evangelical part of the pastors vied with 

* March 30, 1522. Omnia nunc elimari (to polish) cepimus, PMlippus et ego. 



102 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

each other in the enthusiasm with which they greeted it ; 
Lange, the Senior at Erfurt, had translated several of the 
books of the New Testament into German : when Luther's 
translation came into his hands, he at once used and cited it 
in his preaching. Lifted by his noble evangelical spirit above 
the littleness of vanity, he was the first to give its true position 
in the Church to the work which forever consigned his own to 
oblivion. 

There lie at our Imnd, as we write, three early impressions 
of these first editions. One is a folio, dated 1523, and was 
printed by Hans Schonsperger, in the city of Augsburg. It 
was fitting that in that imperial city should early appear a 
work from which sprang the great Confession, which was des- 
tined to be set forth in its halls a few years later. The second 
is a Basel edition, in quarto, of 1523, with its pictures richly 
colored. The third was printed at Strasburg, in 1525, by John 
Knoblauch. All these editions have engravings. They are espe- 
cially rich in pictures in the Book of Revelation ; and there the 
Early impres- artists have been allowed ample room for the play of 
sions. their imaginations. The discolored pages, the an- 

tique type, the grotesque cuts, the strange devices of the print- 
ers, the binding of stamped hogskin, the curious clasps, the 
arms of the old families in whose libraries they once stood, 
gilt upon the sides or engraved on book-plates, the records in 
writing on margin and fly-leaf, made by men of different gen- 
erations, nay, a kind of odor of the past — all these, as we 
handle these ancient books, carry the mind back to days long 
gone — to sore struggles, whose blessings we enjoy; to the 
seed-time of weeping, whose harvest-sheaves we bear in our 
bosom. In the heart of those times there comes before the 
vision that immortal man to whom the world owes the eman- 
cipation of the Word, and its own redemption by that Word 
unbound. We see him bending over his work in the Wart- 
burg. There are times when the text beneath his eyes fails 
to reveal to him the mind of the Spirit, and in the ardor of 
prayer he raises them to the Eternal Source of all illumination, 
and lifts them not in vain. 

Well may we take the Bible in our hands, reverently and 



LUTHER'S VERSION. 103 

prayerfully, most of all because it was God who gave it to the 
Fathers. Well may we lift it tenderly and gratefully for the 
sake of martyrs and confessors, who toiled and died that it 
might be transmitted to us and to all time. 

Amid the enthusiasm with which Luther's translation of 
the ISTew Testament was received, there were, of T 4U , 

1 Luther s ver- 

course, not wanting voices whose tones were by sion. Early ene- 
no means in unison with the general laudation. ^Geor°r Tm ' 
One of these growls of disapproval came from a 
very august source — from a gentleman portly in form, and 
charged by some who professed to know him well, with exhib- 
iting a self-will of the largest kind. He is memorable in his- 
tory for winning the title of " Defender of the Faith" — a 
faith which he afterward had his people burned to death for 
receiving in a part or so which interfered with his later dis- 
coveries. Bitterly disappointed, as he had been, in his matri- 
monial anticipations, he yet exhibited evidences of what Dr. 
Johnson said was illustrated in second marriages : " The tri- 
umph of hope over experience." He had entered into contro- 
versy with Luther, and had discovered that there was one 
man, at least, who was bold enough to " answer a fool accord- 
ing to his folly," although that fool might wear a crown. Not 
having it in his power to relieve his feelings in regard to Lu- 
ther, in his favorite mode, which would have been to have had 
his head taken off, he relieved himself, as he best could, by 
venting his wrath in savage words, and in trying to rouse the 
enmity of others against the man he detested and feared. 
Henry the Eighth wrote, in January, 1523, to the Elector Fred- 
erick and to the Dukes John and George, of Saxony, as follows : 
" As I was about to seal this letter, I recollected that Luther, 
in the silly book which he put forth against me, excused him- 
self from giving an answer on certain points, on the ground, 
that the work of translating the Bible left him no time for it. 
I thought it well, therefore, to solicit your attention to this 
matter, so that he be not allowed to go on with this thing. I 
do not think it right, in general, that the Holy Scriptures 
should be read in the living tongues, and consider it specially 
perilous to read it in a translation by Luther. Any one can 



104 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

foresee how unreliable he will be ; he will corrupt the blessed 
Scriptures by his false interpretation, so that the common reader 
will believe that he is drawing from the Holy Scriptures what 
that accursed man has derived from damnable heretical books." 
The German nobles, to whom this letter was addressed, received 
it in very different ways. Duke George replied, that he had 
bought up all the copies of Luther's translation which had 
found their way into his dominion, and had interdicted the 
circulation of it. The Elector Frederick and Duke John, in 
their reply, passed over this point with significant silence. 

The mandate of Duke George spoke with special bitterness 
of the pictures in Luther's New Testament, pictures which it 
characterized as " outrageous, tending to throw scorn upon the 
Pope's holiness, and to confirm Luther's doctrine." Luther's 
comment, which he bestowed upon the Duke himself, was, " I 
am not to be frightened to death with a bladder : " and to 
inspire some of his own courage in others, he wrote his treatise 
"Of Civil Authority- — -how far we owe allegiance to it," in 
which he declares that rulers who suppress the Holy Scriptures 
are tyrants — murderers of Christ — -worthy of a place with 
Herod, who sought the life of the infant Saviour. 

Jerome Emser managed to get himself involved in the amber 
The counter- °f Luther's history ; and so we know of him. After 
translation. Em- Duke George had entered on his crusade against 
Luther's New Testament, especially against the 
pictures in it, (and in this latter point, we confess, something 
might be urged for the duke, in an artistic point of view,) he 
found his Peter the Hermit in a Catholic theologian, a native 
of Ulm, who had studied at Tubingen and Basle. He had been 
chaplain of Cardinal Raymond Gurk, and had travelled with 
him through Germany and Italy. On his return, he obtained 
the chair of Belles-Lettres at Erfurt. Subsequently, he became 
secretary and orator to Duke George. He was originally a 
friend of Luther, but his friendship was not permanent. It 
gave way at the Leipzig disputation, in 1519, and he transferred 
his allegiance to Eck. He had the honor of being the first 
literary antagonist of Luther's version. Duke George, the 

* See Goz, Ueberblicke, etc., p. 300. 



THE COUNTER-TRANSLATION— EMSER. 105 

Bishop of Merseburg, Prince Adolphus of Anhalt, and the 
Bishop of Meissen, not satisfied with legal measures of sup- 
pression, called in Emser, to use the more formidable weapon, 
the pen, the gigantic power of which Luther was then exhib- 
iting. About a year after the publication of the first edition 
of Luther's New Testament, Emser came forth with his con- 
futation of it. Its title stated its object, which was, to show 
" On what ground, and for what reason, Luther's translation 
should be prohibited to the common people," and he claimed 
to have discovered in the unfortunate book about four errors 
and a quarter, more or less, to each page, some "fourteen 
hundred heresies and falsehoods," all told. Luther did not 
consider the work worthy of a reply ; but Dr. Regius took up 
its defence, and confuted Emser in the robust manner which 
characterized that very hearty age. It seemed, however, as if 
Emser were about to illustrate his honesty in the very highest 
and rarest form in which a critic can commend himself to 
human confidence ; it seemed as if he were about to prepare a 
book of the same general kind as that which he reviewed, in 
which he could be tested by his own canons, and his right to 
be severe on others demonstrated by the masterly hand with 
which he did the work himself. He prepared to publish a 
counter-translation. He had the two qualities, in which many 
translators have found the sole proofs of their vocation : he 
could not write the language into which, and did not under- 
stand the language from which, he was to translate. But his 
coolness stood him in better stead than all the knowledge he 
might have had of Greek and German. With little trouble, he 
produced a translation, equal, on the whole, as even Luther 
himself admitted, to Luther's own, and literally free from every 
objection which he had made to Luther's. "We have had books 
on tne Reformers, before the Reformation ; on Lutheranism, 
before Luther, and such-like ; and another might be written 
on the Yankees, before the sailing of the Mayflower. Emser 
was one of them. 

The way he did the masterly thing we have mentioned was 
this : He adopted, not stole (he was above stealing) — he adopted 
Luther's translation bodily, only altering him where he had 



106 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

had the audacity to desert the Vulgate for the original. These 
alterations removed nearly all the fourteen hundred heresies 
at a sweep. But this was not enough. As the people looked 
at the " outrageous " pictures, not merely in spite of Duke 
George's prohibition, but with that zest with which human 
nature always invests forbidden things, it was determined not 
merely to have pictures, but the happy idea, which none but men 
nobly careless of their reputation for consistency would have 
harbored for a moment, was fallen on — the plan of having 
the very same ones. Duke George paid Cranach forty rix 
thalers for copies of them, and thus secured for himself the 
great satisfaction of seeing the book he had denounced going 
forth in substance, and the pictures which he had specially 
assaulted, scattered everywhere by his own ducal authority. 
In his preface, Emser has anticipated a style of thinking which 
has crept into our Protestant Churches. He says : " Let the 
layman only attend to having a holy life, rather than trouble 
himself about the Scriptures, which are only meant for the 
learned." We have had a good deal of nonsense ventilated in 
our churches in this country very much in the same vein. It 
means about this : Be pious, be in earnest ; never mind having 
ideas or doctrines — they only create divisions ; be zealous 
about something, whether it be right or wrong. You may 
read your Bibles, but be careful not to form an opinion as to 
their meaning, or if you do, attach no importance to it if any 
one does not agree with you. The English moralist was 
thought to go very far when he said, " He can't be wrong 
whose life is in the right ; " but we have something beyond 
him and Emser ; it is in effect : " He can't be wrong whose 
sensations are of the right kind," and who gives himself up 
blindly to the right guidance, and takes the right newspaper. 
Luther's !N"ew Testament, with Luther's pictures, thus 
adopted, and with its margin crowded with Papistical notes, 
which were meant, as far as possible, to furnish the antidote 
to the text, went forth to the world. The preparation was 
made for a second edition of it. Duke George furnished for 
it a preface, in which, after exposing the enormities of Martin 
Luther, he characterized Emser as his dearly beloved, the 



THE COUNTER-TRANSLATION— EMSER. 107 

worthy and erudite, and gave him a copyright for his work, 
which was to reach over the next two years. Poor Emser, 
suffocated in such a profusion of praises and privileges, died 
before he could enjoy any of them. His vanity was very 
great. One special token of it was, that he had his coat of 
arms engraved for the books he published. A copy of his 
[New Testament lies before us, in which there figures, as a part 
of his crest, that goat's head from which Luther — whose 
sense of the ludicrous was very active — derived his ordinary 
sobriquet for Emser, " the goat." 

In his Treatise on Translation, Luther thus characterizes 
his opponent and his work : " We have seen this poor dealer 
in second-hand clothes, who has played the critic with my 
New Testament, (I shall not mention his name again — he has 
gone to his Judge ; and every one, in fact, knows what he 
w r as,) who confesses that my German is pure and good, and 
who knew that he could not improve it, and yet washed to 
bring it to disgrace. He took my New Testament, almost 
word for word, as it came from my hand, removed my preface, 
notes, and name from it, added his name, his preface, and his 
notes to it, and thus sold my Testament under his own name. 
If any man doubts my word, he need but compare the two. 
Let him lay mine and the frippery man's side by side, and he 
will see who is the translator in both. If any man prefers 
the puddle to the spring, he need not take my work ; only, if 
he insist on being ignorant himself, let him allow others to 
learn. If any man can do the work better than I have done, 
let him not hide his talent in a napkin ; let him come forth, 
and we will be the first to praise him. We claim no infalli- 
bility. We shall be thankful to those who point out our mis- 
takes. Mistakes we have no doubt made, as Jerome often 
made them before us." 

The New Testament, in common with the rest of the Scrip- 
tures — yet with a pre-eminence among them — continued to 
be the object of Luther's repeated study up to the time of his 
death. The last revision of the translation of the whole Bible 
was commenced in 1541. The last edition printed under Lu- 
ther's own eyes appeared in 1545. In February, 1546, he 



108 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

died.* The Exegetical Library — not to speak of the Fathers, 
and of other indirect sources — had grown around him as he 
advanced. The Complutensian Polyglott, (1514-18,) and the 
editions of the Isew Testament which followed its text, had 
Growth of n.t. ^ ecome accessible. Erasmus had carried his Greek 
literature. New Testaments, with their translation and anno- 

tations, through five editions, (1516-1535.) The fifth remains 
to this hour the general basis of the received text. The Aldine 
of 1518 had been reprinted frequently. Colinaeus had issued 
his exquisitely beautifnl f edition, (Paris, 1534,) which antici- 
pated many of the readings fixed by modern criticism. Robert 
Stephens, the royal and regal printer, issued the wonderfully 
accurate J mirificam edition of 1546, the text based upon the 
Complutensian, but with a collation of sixteen manuscripts, 
only a little too late for Luther to look upon it. Great efforts, 
and not unsuccessful, had been made, especially by Robert 
Stephens, to amend the current and greatly corrupted text of 
the Yulgate, (1528-1540.) Flacius had issued his Clavis, the 
immortal work in which he developed, as had never been done 
before, the principles of Hermeneutics, (1537.) Pagninus had 
done the same work from a relatively free Roman Catholic 
position, in his Introduction to Sacred Letters, (1536.) The 
era of Luther was an era of translations, in whose results 
there has been specific improvement in detached renderings, 
but no general advance whatever. Germany has produced no 
translation of the ISTew Testament equal, as a whole, to Lu- 
ther's. Our authorized English Version is but a revision of 
Tyndale, to whom it owes all its generic excellencies and 
beauties. Among the Latin translators, Pagninus (1528) took 
a high rank, by his minute verbal accuracy, which caused his 
translation, in after times, to be used as an interlinear. A 
Latin version of the ~New Testament appeared in 1529, with 
the imprint of Wittenberg, an imprint which is probably spu- 
rious. It has been believed, by many scholars, to have been 
the work of Luther ; others attribute it to Melanchthon ; but 

"*See Panzer's Entwurf, pp. 370-376. 

f Perquam nitida. Le Long. (Boehmer-Masch.), i, 206. 

J Nitidissima-duodecim sphalmata duntaxat accurunt. Le Long., i, 208. 



RIVAL TRANSLATIONS. 109 

the authorship has never been settled. The Zurich trans- 
lators, Leo Juda and his associates, had issued their Latin 
version, marked by great merits, not verbal, as Pagninus', but 
more in the reproductive manner of Luther, shedding light 
upon the meaning of the text, (1543.) 

Luther's version had been followed by a number of rival or 
antagonistic translations in German, all of them freely using 
him — many of them, in fact, being substantially no more than 
a re-issue of Luther — with such variations as, they supposed, 
justified, sometimes, by the original, but yet more frequently 
by the Vulgate. Zurich sent forth its version, (1527,) Rival transla . 
Hetzer and other fanatics sent forth theirs. The tions - 
Romish theologians did Luther good service by the rigorous 
process, to which they subjected his translations in every way. 
To the labors of Emser (1527) were added those of Dietenber- 
ger, whose Bible appeared in 1534, (a compound of Emser's 
Eecension of Luther's !N*ew Testament, of Luther's Old Testa- 
ment, and of Leo Juda's Apocrypha, with corrections of the 
Hebrew and Greek from the Latin, and a body of notes,) and 
of Eck, 1537. The gall of their severity was certainly sweet- 
ened by the unconscious flattery of their plagiarism — and 
whatever may have been the spirit in which objections were 
made to his translations, Luther weighed them carefully, and 
wherever they had force, availed himself of them. 

It was the age of inspiration to the translator, and the 
foundations of Biblical Versions, laid by its builders, will stand 
while the world stands. Luther had many and great competi- 
tors, in this era, for the highest glory in this grand work ; but 
posterity accords him the rank of the greatest of Biblical trans- 
lators. "His Bible," says Reuss,* "was, for its era, a miracle 
of science. Its style sounded as the prophecy of a golden age 
of literature, and in masculine force, and in the unction of the 
Holy Spirit, it remains a yet unapproached model." For Lu- 
ther may be claimed, that in the great edifice of the peojDle's 
knowledge of God's Word, he laid the noblest stone, the cor- 
ner-stone, in his translation of the New Testament. Future 
ages may, by their attrition, wear away the rougher points of 

*Gescliichtc der Heiliecn Schrift. N. T., 2 47. 



110 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

its surface, but the massive substance will abide, the stone 
itself can never be displaced. 

Up to this hour, Luther's version of the New Testament has 
been the object of minute examination by friend and foe. 
Protestant scholarship has subjected it to a far severer test 
sources of de- tnan tne enmity of Eome could bring to bear upon 
fects in Luther's it. That particular mistakes and defects exist in 
it, its warmest admirers will admit, but the evidence 
of its substantial accuracy and of its matchless general beauty is 
only strengthened by time. The facts which bear upon its 
defects may be summed * up in the statements which follow : 

I. The influence of the Vulgate was necessarily very power- 
ful on Luther. It was felt when he thought not of it, felt 
when he was consciously attempting to depart from it where it 
was wrong. Imagine an English translator preparing now a 
version of the Few Testament — and think how the old version 
would mould it, not only unconsciously, but in the very face of 
his effort to shake off its influence. 

II. Luther's Greek text was in many respects different from 
that now received, as the received is different from the texts 
preferred by the great textual critics of our century. 

III. Luther's words, as they were used and understood in his 
day, were an accurate rendering of the original, at many places, 
where change of usage now fixes on them a different sense. 
He was right, but time has altered the language. Luther, for 
example, used " als," where " wie " (as) would now be employed ; 
u mogen " for " vermogen," (to be able ;) " etwa " for " irgend 
einmal," (sometime ;) "schier" in the sense of "bald," (soon).f 

IY. Many of the points of objection turn on pure triviali- 
ties. 

Y. Many of the passages criticized are intrinsically difficult. 
Scholars in these cases are not always agreed that Luther was 
wrong, or yet more frequently when they agree so far, they are 
not agreed as to what is to be substituted for his rendering. 

*Hopf, WUrdigung, p. 214. 

f On the antiquated words in Luther's Bible, see Pischon, Erkliirung., Berl., 
1844; and Beck, Worterbuch z. L.'s Bibellibers., Siegen. u. Wiesbaden, 1846; 
Hopf, 230-241. 



REVIEW OF LUTHER'S TRANSLATION. Ill 

Over against this, the felicity in his choice of words, the 
exquisite naturalness and clearness in his structure of sentences, 
the dignity, force, and vivacity of his expressions, Review of Lu _ 
his affluence of phrase, his power of compression, ther's translation. 
and the rhythmic melody of his flow of style, have excited an 
admiration to which witness has heen borne from the beginning 
by friend and foe. When the time shall come, as come it must, 
when the toils and discoveries of centuries shall be brought to 
bear upon Luther's version, in changes which shall be recog- 
nized hy the Church as just, Luther's grand work will not 
only remain in the new as the foundation, but will abide as the 
essential hody of the structure itself. The German nation will 
never have a Bihle for which, next to its great Source, they 
can cease to hless Luther's name. 



IV, 



CONSERVATIVE CHURCH OF THE REFORMATION — 
THE EVANGELICAL PROTESTANT (LUTHERAN) 
CHURCH.* 



FIRST at Wittenberg, and not long after at Zurich, when, 
at the beginning of the sixteenth century, the fulness of 
God's time had been reached, " there blazed up a fire which 
had long been hidden beneath the ashes. It burst into a 

mighty flame. The farthest horizon of North- 
Restoration -„ 1*1, • , 1 1 • T 

of the purified em iLurope grew bright as with some glorious dis- 
church of the pj av f -f-^g WO ndrous electric li^ht, the reflection 

West. . . 

of which touched, with its glory, the remote 
South — even to Italy and Spain. The truth, which had been 
set free, moved with bold steps to the conquest of the hearts 

*Goebel: D. relig. Eigentkum. d. Luth. u. ref. Kirch. 1837. 
Augusti: Beitr. z. Gesch. u. Statist, der Ev. Kirch. 1838. 
Hering: Gesch. d. kirch. Unionsb. 1838. 
Rudelbach : Ref. Luth. u. Union. 1839. 
Dorner: D. Princip. Uns. Kirch. 1847. 
Wigger's : Statistik. 2 vols. 1842. 

Ullmann: Z. Charakter. d. ref. Kirch, (in Stud. u. Kritik. 1843.) 
Herzog: D. Einh. u. Eigent. d. beid. Ev. Schwesterk. (Berl.l. Zeitung, 1844.) 
Nitzsch: Prakt. Theol. 1847. 

Schweizer: Die Glaubensl. d. Ev. Ref. Kirch. Batjr: Princ. d. Ref. Kirch. 
(Both in Zeller's Jahrb. 1847.) 
Ebrard: Dogmatik. 1851. (2d ed. 1861.) 

Schenkel: D. Princip. d. Protestantism. 1852. Heppe. (1850. Stud. u. Krit.) 
Schenkel. (1852: Prinzip. 1855: Unionsberuf. 1858: Dogm.) 

112 



RESTORATION OF THE PURIFIED CHURCH. 113 

of men. The princes and people of the great Germanic races 
were ripest for its reception, and were the first to give it their 
full confidence. Such a triumph of the Gospel had not been 
witnessed since the times of the Apostles. The corner-stone 
of the purified temple of the Holy Ghost was laid anew — nay, 
it also seemed as it were the very top-stone which was laid, 
while the regenerated nations shouted, ' Grace, grace ! ' unto 
it. The Gospel won its second grand triumph over the Law, 
and a second time Paul withstood Peter to the face because 
he was to be blamed. In place of a bare, hard set of words, 
of a lifeless and mechanical formalism, there reappeared the 
idea, the spirit, and the life, in the whole boundless fulness 
and divine richness in which they had appeared in the prim- 
itive Church."* To comprehend the Reformation, it is neces- 
sary to trace the essential idea of Christianity through its 
whole history. " The Greek Church saw in Christianity the 
revelation of the Logos, as the Supreme Divine Reason. 
Christianity was to it the true philosophy. The Church of the 
West, the Roman Catholic Church, laid its grand stress on 
the Organism of the Church. There dwelt the truth, and 
there the life-controlling power." f " Catholicism had unfolded 
itself into a vast system of guarantees of Christianity ; but 
the thing itself, the Christianity they were to guarantee, was 
thrown into the shade. The antithesis between spurious and 

Gass : Ges. d. Prot. Dogmat. 1853. 

Zeller: Syst. Zwinglis. 1853. Wetzel: (Ztschr. Rudelb. u. Guerik. 1853.) 

Lucke: Ueb. d. Geschicht. ein. richt. Formulirung. (Deutsch. Zeitschr. 1853.) 

Muller: 1854-63: Union. 

Hagenbach: Z. Beantw. d. F. Ub. d. Princ. d. Protest. (Stud. u. Krit. 1854.) 

Schneckenburger : Vergl. Darstell. d. Luth. u. Ref. Lehrbeg. 1855. 2 vols. 

Harnack: Die Luth. Kirche in Licht. d. Geschicht. 1855. 

Rudelbach: Die Zeichen d. Zeit. inn. d. Ev.-Luth. Kirche. 1857. 

Stahl: Die Luth. Kirche u. d. Union. 2d ed. 1861. 

Thomas : Union Luth. Kirch, u. Stahl. 1860. 

Hundesiiagen : Beitrlig. z. Kirch. Verf. etc., d. Protest. 1864. 

Kahnis : Ueber d. Princip. d. Protestantis. 1865. 

Luthardt : Handb. d. Dogmat. 2d ed. 1866. 

Kahnis: Luth. Dogmat. iii. 1868. 

Seiss : Ecclesia Lutherana : A Brief Surv. of E. L. C. 1868. 

*Wigger's Statistik, i. 92. f Luthardt, Dogm. § 11, 3. 

8 



114 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

real Christianity came more and more to be narrowed to the 
affirmation or denial of the validity of these guarantees — 
until it became the error most fundamental of all errors, to 
assail the infallibility of the Pope, and of the Church." * In 
the Roman Catholic Church a vast system of outward ordi- 
nances and institutions had grown up, a stupendous body of 
ritualistic legalism — under which the old life of the Gospel 
went out, or became dim, in the heart of millions. The pow- 
ers that ruled the Church were Moses, without the moral law, 
and Levi, without his wife. The grand distinctive character- 
istic of the Reformation over against this, the characteristic 
which conditioned all the rest, was that it was evangelical, a 
restoration of the glad tidings of free salvation in Jesus 
Christ — and thus it gave to the regenerated Church its 
exalted character as "Evangelical." Both the tendencies in 
the Reformation claimed to be evangelical. Both, as contrasted 
with Rome, rested on the Gospel -— Christ alone ; grace alone ; 
justification by faith alone ; the Bible the only rule ; but in 
what is now styled the Lutheran Church, the Evangelical prin- 
ciple, as opposed to legalistic, deterministic, and rationalistic 
tendencies, came to a more consistent development, both in 
doctrine and life. 

The large body of Christians whose historical relation to the 
great leader of the Reformation is most direct, forms a Church, 
which, in the language of a writer of another communion,t 
Evangelical Pro- " ^ s * ne most important, the greatest, the most 
testant church, weighty of the churches" which arose in that 
glorious revolution. It has been her misfor- 
tune to be known to English readers, not through her own 
matchless literature, but by the blunders of the ignorant, the 
libels of the malicious, and the distorted statements of the 
partisan. Yet it would be easy to present a vast array of 
evidence in her favor, which should be taken, not from the 
language of her apologists, but exclusively from the writings 
of large-minded and intelligent men in other churches ; and 
if, in this sketch of the Lutheran Church, the reader should 
be struck with the fact that in sustaining our position by cita- 

* Mirtensen, 30. 

f Goebel. Die relig. Eigcnthiiuilichk. d. Luther. u. reform. Kirch., 1837. 



DENOMINATIONAL NAME. 115 

tions, our own authors seem to be passed by in some cases 
where they might appropriately be quoted, he will account for 
it by the preference which we naturally feel for the testimony 
of those who can be suspected of no partiality for the object 
of their eulogy. 

It is a curious fact in denominational history, that, as an 
ordinary rule, the more large, catholic, and churchly the title of 
a sect, the smaller, narrower, and more sectarian is Deaonunation- 
the body that bears it. In a certain respect, the al Name 
Roman Catholic Church is one of the narrowest of sects, first, 
because of the bigotry of its exclusiveness, not only over against 
the Protestant bodies, but also toward the venerable Church 
of the Orient, with which it is in such large doctrinal and ritual 
affinity, and with which it was once so closely united, but in 
which there has been produced by irritating and aggressive acts 
a more than Protestant ardor of aversion to the Papal See ; and 
secondly, because of its building upon a solitary earthly see as a 
foundation. If you look round among the Protestant bodies, 
you will find such glorious titles as "Disciples of Christ/' 
u Church of G-od," " Christians," worn as the distinctive cogno- 
men of recent, relatively small, heretical or fanatical bodies, who 
have largely denounced all sectarianism, for the purpose of build- 
ing up new sects of the extremest sectarianism, and who reject 
the- testimony of ages and the confessions of Christendom, for 
the purpose of putting in their place the private opinion of some 
pretentious heresiarch of the hour. The latest assaults upon the 
old-fashioned denominationalism are made, every now and then, 
by some new church, the statistics and leading features of 
which are somewhat as follows : ministers, one ; members, 
intermittent from the sexton up to a moderate crowd, accord- 
ing as the subject of the sermon advertised on Saturday takes 
or does not take the fancy of those who spend the Lord's day 
in hunting lions ; churches, one (over, if not in, a beer saloon ;) 
creed, every man believes what he chooses ; terms of member- 
ship, every one who feels like it shall belong till he chooses to 
leave. This uncompromising body, which looks forward to 
the speedy overthrow of all Christendom because all Christen- 
dom rests on human creeds, is styled " Church of the Ever- 



116 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

lasting Gospel," "Pure Bible Christians Church., 
thing of the kind. 

Had the Lutheran Church chosen her own name, therefore, 
it would have furnished no presumption against her — it would 
have only shown that, as sectarianism may take the names 
which point to a general catholicity, so, on the other hand, 
the most truly catholic of Christian bodies might be willing 
to submit to the historical necessity of assuming a name which 
seemed to point to a human originator. There was a time when 
the true Catholics were tauntingly called Athanasians, and 
could not repudiate the name of Athanasius without faith- 
lessness to the triune God himself. But our Church is not 
responsible for this portion of her name. She has been known 
by various titles, but her own earliest and strongest preference 
was for the name Evangelical, (1525,) and many 
of her most devoted sons have insisted on giv- 
ing her this title without any addition. No title could more 
strongly express her character, for pre-eminently is her system 
one which announces the glad tidings of salvation, which 
excites a joyous trust in Christ as a Saviour, which makes 
the word and sacraments bearers of saving grace. In no 
system is Christ so much as in the Lutheran ; none exalts so 
much the glory of his person, of his office, and of his work. 
The very errors with which her enemies charge the Lutheran 
Church are those which would arise from an excess in this 
direction. If she believed in a local ubiquity of Christ's whole 
person, (as she does not,) this would be the excess of faith in 
his presence ; if she believed in consubstantiation, (as she does 
not,) this would show that though her faith in Christ was 
blind, yet it hesitated at nothing which seemed to rest on his 
word ; if she denied the obligation of the Church to keep the 
Christian Sabbath, (as she does not,) it would show that she 
had carried to excess her disposition to see in Christ the sub- 
stance of all shadows. Happy is the Church whose failings 
bear in the direction of safety, which, if it err, errs not in a legal- 
istic direction, but in an excess of evangelism. The heart of 
unbelief works only too surely in reducing an excess ; but how 
shall a Church be revived, which, in its very constitution, is 



CHURCH OF THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 117 

defective in the evangelical element ? The name Evangelical 
is now given, ont of the bounds of the Lutheran Church, to 
the Christianity of the heart everywhere, to all that makes 
much of Christ in the right way. It is a poor trick of some 
extravagant party within a party — some paltry clique in 
Protestantism at large, or in one of its communions — to attempt 
to monopolize the name Evangelical. Where thoughtful men 
accept the word in this narrowed sense, they despise it — but 
it is, in its true, original compass, a noble, a glorious name, not 
to be lightly abandoned to those who abuse it. The true cor- 
rective of abuse, is to restore, or hold fast the right use. Our 
Church, to which it belongs in the great historic sense, has a 
claim in her actual life, second to none, to wear it. She is the 
Evangelical Church. 

At the Diet of Spire, (1529,) the Evangelical Lutheran Con- 
fessors, from their protest against the government of the Bishops 
and against the enforced imposition of the Mass, received the 
name of Protestants. This continued to be the diplomatic style 
of the Church till the peace of Westphalia, 1648. „ 

r \ Protestant. 

" The name Protestants," says Archbishop Bram- 
hall, " is one to which others have no right but by commu- 
nion with the Lutherans." This name, in European usage, is 
indeed, to a large extent, still confined to them. 

In Poland and Hungary, the official title of our communion 
is " Church of the Augsburg Confession," and this Church of the 
is the name which, on the title-page of the Form of Augsburg confes- 
Concord, and repeatedly within it, is given to our 
churches.* 

The name Lutheran was first used by Eck, when he published 
the Bull against Luther. Pope Hadrian VI. (1522) employed 
it, also, as a term of reproach. It was applied by the Roman- 
ists to all who took part against the Pope.f Luther strongly 
disapproved of the use of his name, while he warned men at 

* ''Electors, Prince, and States of the Augsburg Confession," "who embrace 
the Augsburg Confession." Gerhard, in the title-page of his "Confessio Cath- 
olica " : " The Catholic and Evangelical doctrine as it is professed by the churches 
devoted (addictae) to the Augsburg Confession." 

f In the German of the Apology of the A. C, 213, 44, it is said: " The saving 
doctrine, the precious, Holy Gospel, they call Lutheran." 



118 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the same time against such a repudiation of it as might seem 
to imply a rejection of the doctrine of Glod's word preached by 
him. " It is my doctrine, and it is. not my doctrine ; it is in 
my hand, but Grod put it there. Luther will have nothing to do 
with Lutheranism except as it teaches Holy Scripture 
purely."* " Let us not call our Church Lutheran," 
said Gustavus Erichson, King of Sweden, "let us call it Christian 
and Apostolic." The Church simply tolerates the name to 
avoid the misapprehension and confusion which would arise if 
it were laid aside. " We do not call ourselves Lutherans, but 
are so styled by our enemies, and we permit it as a token of our 
consent with the pure teaching of the word which Luther set 
forth. We suffer ourselves to bear his name, not as of one who 
has invented a new faith, but of one who has restored the old, and 
purified the Church." f " Our faith does not rest upon Luther's 
authority. We hearken to the voice of Christ in his word, to 
which, as his faithful teacher and servant, Luther led us." 
" We are called Lutherans only by Papists and other secta- 
rians, as in the ancient Church the Arians styled those who held 
the true faith Athanasians." In the Form of Concord, indeed, 
the Church has uttered a solemn protest against all human 
authority, which ought forever to remove the misapprehension 
that any other position is conceded to Luther than that of a 
witness for the truth. \ 

It is not indeed difficult to see why the name of Luther 
should attach itself so firmly to the part of the Church in 
whose Reformation he was the noblest worker. He was the first 
Reformer — the one from whom the whole Reformation of 
the Sixteenth Century evolved itself. What may be the date 
Reason of the °f the private opinions of others has nothing to do 
lisinie - with this question. A reformer is not one who 

thinks reformation, but one who brings it about. Men had 
not only had reformatory ideas before Luther was born, but 
had died for them, and in some sense, though not utterly, had 
died in vain. The names of Wiclif, Huss, Jerome of Prague, 

* See the passages collected in Cotta's Gerhard, xi. 229. 
f Gerhard : Loci, xi. 224, 228, 230. 
% Form. Concord, 518, 2, 8. 



REASON OF THE NAME. 119 

and Savanarola, will be forever dear to mankind. Yet the Re- 
formers before the Reformation were only such potentially. 
So often did the Reformation seem to hang upon Luther's own 
person, that we are justified in saying that God gave him the 
place he filled, because there was no other man of his age to 
fill it. "With all the literary grace of Erasmus, how feeble 
does he seem, " spending his life," as Luther happily said, 
" trying to walk on eggs without breaking them." Without 
Luther, we see no evidence that the Reformation of the six- 
teenth century would have taken place, or that the names 
of Zwingle, Melanchthon, or Calvin would occupy their present 
place in history. No position is so commanding as that of Lu- 
ther. He rises above the crowned heads, above the potentates 
in Church and in State, and above all the Reformers of his era. 
In this or that respect he has had equals — in a few respects he 
has had superiors, but in the full circle of those glorious gifts 
of nature and of grace which form a great man, he has had 
no superiors, and no equals. He sustained a responsibility such 
as never rested upon any other man, and he proved himself 
sufficient for it. In the Reformation, of the Germanic and 
Scandinavian type, his views carried great weight with them. 
His name to this hour is revered with a singleness and passion- 
ateness of affection without a parallel. JSTo man was able to 
take to the Swiss type of Reformation, the attitude Luther 
took to the Germanic. In its own nature, the Reformed divi- 
sion has no ideal embodied in an actual life ; it cannot have a 
solitary man who is its microcosm. It can have no little 
Cosmos, because it has no great Cosmos ; it can have no name 
equally revered in all its branches. Luther is more a hero to 
it than any one of its own heroes. It could have at best but 
a unity like that of those great stars which have been 
broken, and as asteroids are now separate in their unity. 
But, in fact, it has no unity, no tendency to draw around a 
common historical centre. It binds itself closely to the par- 
ticular nationalities in which it is found. It is German, Dutch, 
Scotch. Out of this arises a confusion, when these churches 
make a transition into other nationalities. So little is there 
of the tendency to unity, that they keep up their old divisions 



120 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

with their old names, when they have pat an ocean between 
them and the land of their origin. The name of the national 
tongue cleaves to the body, until the vague yearning of union- 
istic feeling overcomes the Calvinistic positiveness, or the 
sense of the living nationality completely overcomes the tradi- 
tionary feeling of the old, or a broader catholicity is substituted 
for the earlier denominational feeling. Then only the name 
of tongue or race drops, but with it vanishes an evidence, if 
not a source of fealty to the original tendency of the Zwinglo- 
Calvinistic Reformation. 

The Swiss Reformation, which had commenced with the 
Pelagianizing and rationalistic tendency imparted by Zwingle, 
was redeemed by Calvin, who, under influences originating in 
the Lutheran Church, was brought to that profounder faith 
which, in many of its aspects, is a concession to the Lutheran 
system over against the Zwinglian. Calvin was, as compared 
with Zwingle, Lutheranizing in doctrine and in worship ; but, 
as compared with Luther, he was Zwinglianizing in both. But 
the Lutheranizing element which Calvin brought, and by 
which he saved the Swiss tendency from early transition to 
chaos, was not sufficient to overcome all its defects. The com- 
parative unity of Calvinism has been broken in upon by the 
nationalizing tendency showing itself in the rise of a variety 
of national creeds, where there was little real difference of 
doctrine ; by the internal sectarian tendency producing Calvin- 
istic denominations within the . national Calvinistic churches ; 
and by the branching off of Arminian and other sects. The 
Lutheran Church, on the other hand, has had a great relative 
unity. It has not felt itself divided by the nationalities into 
which it is distributed. It has a common Confession through- 
out the world ; and while it repudiates the idea that true unity 
depends upon outward uniformity, its unity of spirit has 
wrought a substantial likeness throughout the world, in life, 
usage, and worship. In view of all these facts, it is not sur- 
prising /that the name of Luther has adhered to the Church. 
It has an historical definiteness which no other of the greatest 
names associated with the Reformation would have. The 
system of Zwingle, as a whole, is not now the confessional 



REASON OF THE NAME. 121 

system of any denomination. The Arminians who would accept 
his sacramental views, reject his fatalistic ideas. The Calvinists 
reject his sacramental views and his Pelagianism. The name of 
Calvin would not define denominational character ; for within 
the Calvinistic denominations there is so real a diversity that 
parts of the Reformed Churches vary more from each other than 
those most in affinity with the Lutheran Church vary from it. 
Of all the Church-names suggested by the ingenuity of men, by 
the enmity of foes, or by the partiality of friends, what name, in 
the actual state of Christianity, is preferable to the name Lu- 
theran ? The name " Christian " has no divine warrant. First 
used at Antioch, it may have been meant as a reproach; and St. 
Peter alludes to it only as actually used, not as commanded. 
"We know that " Nazarenes " and " Galileans " were the earlier 
names of the disciples of Christ. To assume the name Christian, 
or any other title which belongs to all believers, as the exclusive 
name of any part of Christendom, is in the last degree pre- 
sumptuous. The name " Catholic " is also without divine com- 
mand : it embraces the whole true Church invisible ; and while 
our Church claims that her true members are a part of this 
Church Catholic, and that she confesses in all their purity its 
doctrines, she would repudiate the claim of any particular 
Church to the sole possession of this great title. The " Ortho- 
dox Church " of the East is only entitled to that name if the 
rest of Christendom is heterodox. " Eoman Catholic " is a 
contradiction in terms, The Church which bears it ceases to 
be Catholic just in the proportion in which it is Eoman. To 
call a church " Episcopal," is to give it a title which only 
marks its government, and that a government not peculiar to 
it: the Church of Eome, the Greek Church, the Oriental 
sects, are all Episcopal in government. To limit it by " Pro- 
testant " still leaves it vague. The Lutheran Church in 
Denmark, in Norway, and in Sweden, and the Moravian 
Churches are Episcopal in government and Protestant in doc- 
trine. The name " Presbyterian " only indicates a form of gov- 
ernment in which great bodies of Christians concur who differ 
in faith and usage. " Methodist " simply preserves a college 
nickname, and is given to a variety of bodies. " Methodist 



122 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Episcopal " unites that nickname with a form of government 
older and wider than Methodism. The name " Baptists " only 
indicates the doctrine concerning the external mode and the 
proper candidates for a Christian sacrament, and covers a great 
number of communions which have nothing else in common. 
The name " Reformed " applies to a species that belongs to 
a genus. There is, indeed, in every case, a history which ex- 
plains, if it does not justify, these names : nevertheless, every 
one of them, as the distinctive name of a communion, is open 
to the charge of claiming too much, expressing too little, or 
of thrusting an accident into the place of an essential principle. 
The necessity of distinctive names arises from the indisputable 
divisions of Christendom, and in the posture of all the facts 
the name of Luther defines the character of a particular 
Church as no other could. It has been borne specifically by 
but one Church ; and that Church, relieved as she is of all 
the responsibility of assuming it, need not be ashamed of it. 
No name of a mere man is more dear to Christendom and to 
humanity. It is a continual remembrancer of the living faith, 
the untiring energy, the love of Christ .and of men, on the 
part of one who did such eminent service to the Church, that 
men cannot think of her without thinking of him. 

The name thus given her in scorn by her foes stands, for 
historical reasons, in conjunction with the name she first chose 
for herself. As distinct from the Romish Church, and all 
churches which obscure the grace of the Gospel, or clo not 
confess its doctrines in all their fulness, let her consent to be 
called THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH, to 
testify, if God so please, to the end of time, that she is neither 
ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, nor of Christ's servant who, 
in the presence of earth and of hell, restored that Gospel, 
preached it, lived it, and died in the triumphs of its faith. 

Our age has been extraordinarily fertile in efforts at defining 
the distinctive and antithetical characteristics of the Lutheran 
and Reformed Churches. One age develops principles — another 
speculates on them. The sixteenth century was creative — the 
nineteenth is an age of cosmogonies : the one made worlds — 
the other disputes how they were made. " The owl of Mi- 



DISTINCTIVE PRINCIPLE. 123 

nerva," says Hegel, " always flaps her wings in the twilight." * 
Gobel, Mtzsch, and Heppe affirm that in Reformed Protest- 
antism, the formal principle of the exclusive normal authority 
of the Holy Scriptures (acknowledged by both) is the domi- 
nating principle. In Lutheran Protestantism, the material 
principle, justification by faith, (acknowledged by both,) dom- 
inates. In the former, Scripture is regarded more exclusively 
as the sole source ; in the latter, more as the norm of a doc- 
trine which is evolved from the analogy of faith, and to which, 
consequently, the pure exegetical and confessional tradition of 
the Church possesses more^ value. Herzog says D istinctive 
that Lutheran Protestantism is the antithesis to principle of the 
the Judaism of the Romish Church — an antith- 
esis which has imparted to the Lutheran doctrines a Gnos- 
ticizing tinge : the Reformed Protestantism was opposed to 
the paganism of the Roman Church, and thus came to exhibit 
in its doctrine a Judaizing ethical character. Schweizer says : 
" The Reformed Protestantism is the protestation against every 
deification of the creature, and, consequently, lays its empha- 
sis on the absoluteness of God, and the sovereignty of his will. 
This is its material principle, with which coheres the exclusive 
emphasizing of Scripture as the normal principle." In a sim- 
ilar vein of thought, Baur says : " The Reformed system 
begins above, and comes down ; the Lutheran begins below, and 
ascends." "We might perhaps phrase it : the Reformed begins 
with God, and reasons down to man ward ; the Lutheran begins 
with man, and reasons up to Godward. In opposition to 
this view, Schneckenburger says that the distinction does not 
arise from the predominance of the theological in the one sys- 
tem, of the anthropological in the other, of the absolute idea 
of God upon the one side, or of the subjective consciousness 
of salvation on the other, but in the different shape taken in 
the two systems by the consciousness of salvation itself ; from 
which it results that the one system falls back upon the eter- 
nal decree, the other is satisfied to stop at justification by faith. 
Stahl, approximating more to the view of Schweizer, finds in 
the " absolute causality " of God the dominating principle of 

* Kabnis, Princip. d. Protestant., 4. 



124 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the Reformed doctrine, and regards it as its characteristic 
that its line of thought is adverse to the recognition of 
mysteries.* " The entire structure of the Reformed Church 
is determined, on the one side, by a motive of opposition to 
the mysterious, (no actual dispensation by the means of grace,) 
which was imparted to it by Zwingle ; and on the other side, by 
the evangelical theocratic impulse, (the glorification of God in 
the congregation,) which was derived from Calvin." f How 
far these estimates may be accepted as well-grounded, our 
readers can judge with the facts more fully before them. 

The Lutheran Church has peculiar claims upon the interest 
of the thoughtful reader of history, as she is the oldest, the 
most clearly legitimate, the most extensive of Protestant 
Churches, and in a certain sense the mother of them all. Em- 
bracing the North, of Europe, the Scandinavian kingdoms, the 
German States, with millions of her children in Russia, Hun- 
gary, Poland, France, Holland, and in almost every part of 
the globe where Protestantism is tolerated, she speaks in more 
tongues, and ministers in more nationalities than all the others 
claims and cha- together. She is the most conservative of them 
racter of the Ln- a i] 5 though she bore the first and greatest part 

theran Church. , , . , . ,-it-ii 

in the most daring aggression on established 
error. No church has so vigorously protested against the 
abuses of human reason, and none has done so much for 
the highest culture of the human mind — she has made 
Germany the educator of the world. No church has been 
so deeply rooted in the verities of the ancient faith, and 
none has been marked by so much theological progression : in 
none has independent religious thought gone forth in such 
matchless ornature of learning, and under such constant con- 
trol of a genuine moderation. No church has enunciated more 
boldly the principles of Christian liberty, and none has been 
so free from a tendency to pervert it to licentiousness. No 
church has more reverently bowed to the authority of God's 
Word, and none has been more free from the tendency to sect 
and schism. More than forty millions of the human race 
acknowledge her as their spiritual mother ; and she gives 

*Luthardt, Dogm., \ 13, 1. f Stahl, Die Luth. Kirch., 65. 



CLAIMS AND CHARACTER. 125 

them all, not only the one rule of faith, but she does what no 
other church does : acknowledging the Bible as the only authority, 
she gives to her various nationalities one confession of faith, the 
Augsburg Confession, of which the most popular historian 
of the Reformation, a French Oalvinist, says: "It will ever 
remain one of the masterpieces of the human mind enlight- 
ened by the Spirit of God," and which Bishop Bull calls " the 
greatest, the most noble and ancient of ail the confessions of 
the Reformed Churches." This immortal document furnishes 
an integral defining term to the Lutheran Church. Through, all 
time and in all lands this is hers : it is her grand distinction 
that she is the Church of the Augsburg Confession. 

It has been said with some truth that the Evangelical 
Lutheran development of Christianity is closely allied with 
that of Augustine, but it is wholly remote from his fatalistic 
tendencies, and from his indeterminate and often self-contra- 
dictory attitude toward many important points of doctrine. 
The Romish Church makes divine things objects of sense, the 
ultra-Protestant principle would make them objects of the 
understanding, the Lutheran Church holds them as objects of 
faith. The Romish Church too much confounds the divine 
and the human, as for example, in the person of The Lutherau 
Christ, in Scripture, in the Church, and in the church. The Ra- 
Sacraments. Ultra-Protestantism separates them QhxiTCheBm The 
too much. The Evangelical Lutheran Church Homish church, 
holds herself alike remote from confounding and from sepa- 
rating them, and maintains them as at once distinct in their 
essence, and inseparable in their union.* " Zwingle's labors 
were from the outward to the inward, Luther's wholly from 
the inward to the outward. The Reformed Reformation, like 
all the earlier efforts, would probably have failed, if the 
Reformed had not received from Luther the internal element 
of faith. It cannot be denied that that Reformation which 
was actually brought to pass, was begun by Luther. With 
full justice, in this respect, he is entitled to be called the first 
Reformer." f "The Lutheran Church is the most glorious 
and most complete earthly image of the invisible Church. 

* Kurtz, Lehrb. d. K. G., ed. 6th, 1868, § 140. f Goebel, 52. 



126 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION 

The word in the spirit, the spirit in the word, the body in the 
idea, the idea in the body, the visible in the invisible, and this 
again in that, the human and natural in the divine and super- 
natural, and these latter elements again in the former — this 
is what she aims at, and this it is she has. As the Eomish 
Church represents mere rest and stability, the Reformed mere 
unrest and mobility, and both are consequently defective in 
development and in history in the highest sense of those 
terms, the Lutheran Church, on the other hand, has in it the 
true germ of historical life, which constantly expands itself 
toward a higher perfection. In the Eomish Church the life 
of history dries up, in the Reformed it is comminuted ; in the 
one it compacts itself to a mummy, in the other it dissipates 
itself into atoms. There is a Lutheran Church, but there are 
only Calvinistic or Reformed Churches." * 

" The Lutheran Church in its distinctive character," says a 
Reformed writer, f " can tolerate no sects. The number of the 
Reformed sects is prodigious, literally innumerable. In Edin- 
burgh alone there are sixteen of them, in Glasgow twenty-six. 
It seems as if the production of these sects, which shoot up as 
mushrooms in the soil of the Reformed Church, were neces- 
sary to the preservation of her life and health. They have all 
proceeded from the same principle, and have only striven to 
carry it out more logically, and she is therefore bound to recog- 
nize them as her genuine children. The Lutheran Church is 
like the trunk of a great tree, from which the useless branches 
have been cut off, and into which a noble scion (justification 
by faith) has been grafted. It is one complete, well-arranged, 
closely compacted church, which unsparingly removes all wild 
growths and pernicious off -shoots, (sects.) The Reformed 
Church has cut down the tree to the root, (the Holy Scrip- 
tures,) and from that healthy root springs up a wide thicket. 
The dying out of one of the twigs only leaves ampler nourish- 
ment for the others." The most powerful conservative influ- 
ences within the Reformed Churches have, in fact, invariably 
been connected more or less immediately with the Lutheran 
Church. With her principles is bound up the only hope of 
Protestant unity. 

* Wiggers, i. 96. f Goebel, 176. 



ARMINIANISM AND CALVINISM. 127 

In the unaltered Augsburg Confession, (1530,) the Lutheran 
Church has a bond of her distinctive life through- 

° The doctriiK s f 

out the entire world. As a further development the Evangelical 
of her doctrines, the larger part of the Church I-*™*™*- 
recognizes the confessional character of the " Apology for the 
Augsburg Confession," (1530,) the Larger and Smaller Cate- 
chisms of Luther, (1529,) the Smalcald articles, (1537,) and 
the Formula of Concord, (1577,) all which were issued together 
in 1580, with a preface signed by fifty-one princes, and by the 
official representatives of thirty-five cities. The whole collec- 
tion bore the title of the "Book of Concord." The funda- 
mental doctrine most largely asserted in them is, that we are 
justified before God, not through any merit of our own, but 
by his tender mercy, through faith in his Son. The depravity 
of man is total in its extent, and his will has no positive ability 
in the work of salvation, but has the negative ability (under 
the ordinary means of grace) of ceasing its resistance. Jesus 
Christ offered a proper, vicarious, propitiatory sacrifice. Faith 
in Christ presupposes a true penitence. The renewed man co- 
works with the Spirit of God. Sanctification is progressive, 
and never reaches absolute perfection in this life. The Holy 
Spirit works through the Word and the Sacraments, which 
only, in the proper sense, are means of grace. Both the Word 
and the Sacraments bring a positive grace, which is offered to 
all who receive them outwardly, and which is actually imparted 
to all who have faith to embrace it. 

Luther, in consequence of his rigid training in the Augus- 
tinian theology, had maintained, at an earlier period, a particu- 
laristic election, a view which he gradually aban- Arminianism 
doned. The views of Arminius himself, in regard and Calvinism, 
to the five points, were formed under Lutheran influences, 
and do not differ essentially from those of the Lutheran 
Church ; but on many points in the developed system now 
known as Arminianism, the Lutheran Church has no affinity 
whatever with it, and on these points would sympathize far 
more with Calvinism, though she has never believed that in 
order to escape from Pelagianism, it is necessary to run into 
the doctrine of absolute predestination. The " Formula of Con- 



128 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

cord " touches the five points almost purely on their practical 
sides, and on them arrays itself against Calvinism, rather by the 
negation of the inferences which result logically from that 
system, than by express condemnation of its fundamental 
theory in its abstract form. It need hardly be added that the 
Lutheran Church holds firmly all the doctrines of the pure Cath- 
olic faith, and of our general Protestant and Evangelical or- 
thodoxy. 

The Evangelical Lutheran Church regards the Word of God, 
the canonical Scriptures, as the absolute and only law of faith 
and of life. Whatever is undefined by its letter or its spirit, 
is the subject of Christian liberty, and pertains not to the 
sphere of conscience, but to that of order ; no power may enjoin 
Rule of faith upon the Church as necessary what God has forbid- 
and creed. ^en, or has passed by in silence, as none may for- 

bid her to hold what God has enjoined upon her, or to prac- 
tise what by His silence he has left to her freedom. Just as 
firmly as she holds upon the one hand that the Bible is the 
rule of faith, and not a confession of it, she holds, on the other 
hand, that the creed is a confession of faith, and not the rale 
of it. The pure creeds are simply the testimony of the true 
Church to the doctrines she holds ; but as it is the truth they 
confess, she, of necessity, regards those who reject the truth 
confessed in the creed, as rejecting the truth set forth in the 
Word. While, therefore, it is as true of the Lutheran Church 
as of any other, that when she lays her hand upon the Bible, 
she gives the command, " Believe I " and when she lays it on 
the confession, she puts the question, " Do you believe ? "* it is 
also true, that when a man replies " !N*o," to the question, she 
considers him as thereby giving evidence that he has not obeyed 
the command. Believing most firmly that she has the truth, 
and that her testimony to this truth is set forth in her creeds, 
she is distinguished among Protestant churches by her fidelity 
to her Confession. " During the time of unbelief, the State 
Church of Holland, the Church of the Palatinate, and the Re- 
formed Synod of Lower Saxony, renounced all confessions of 
faith. No Lutheran Church, however, ventured to do this." f 

* See Goebel, 122, note. f Do., 123. 



BAPTISM. 129 

Very great misrepresentations have been made in regard to 
certain doctrines of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, which 
it may be well to notice. No doctrine can be Doctrines mis- 
charged upon her as a whole unless it is set forth, "presented. 
or fairly implied in a Confession to which she gives a universal 
recognition. The only creeds which have this attribute are 
the oecumenical creeds and the Augsburg Confession. The 
large majority of the Church which explicitly receives the 
other Confessions does so on the ground that one system is 
embraced in the whole, that to accept one ex animo intelli- 
gently, is logically to accept all, and that it is wise for the 
Church so fully to state her faith, and its grounds, that as 
far as human preventives can go, the crafty shall not be able 
to misrepresent, nor the simple to mistake her meaning. 
As the Church did but the more surely abide by the Apos- 
tles' Creed in setting forth the Mcene, and did but furnish 
fresh guarantee of her devotion to the Mcene in adopting the 
Athanasian, and gave reassurance of her fidelity to the three 
oecumenical creeds in accepting the Augsburg Confession — 
so in the body of symbols in the Book of Concord she reset her 
seal to the one old faith, amplified but not changed in the 
course of time. 

The doctrines in regard to which she has been misrepre- 
sented, may be classed under the following heads : 

I. Baptism. The Lutheran Church holds that it is necessary 
to salvation to be born again of water (baptism) and the Spirit, 
(John iii. 5, and Augsburg Confession, Art. II. and IX. ;) but 
she holds that this necessity, though absolute as regards the 
work of the Spirit, is, as regards the outward part of baptism, 
ordinary, not absolute, or without exception ; that the con- 
tempt of the sacrament, not the want of it, condemns ; and 
that though God binds us to the means, he does 

, . , . Baptism. 

not bind his own mercy by them. From the time 
of Luther to the present hour, the Lutheran theologians have 
maintained the salvability and actual salvation of infants dying 
unbaptized. The rest of the doctrine of the Lutheran Church, 
as a whole, is involved in her confessing, with the Nicene 
creed, " one baptism for the remission of sins," and that through 



130 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

it the grace of God is offered, that children are to be baptized, 
and that being thus committed to God, they are graciously 
received by him. At the same time she rejects the theory of the 
Anabaptists, that infants unbaptized have salvation because of 
their personal innocence, and maintains that the nature with 
which we were born requires a change, which must be wrought 
by the Spirit of God, before we can enter into heaven (A. C, 
Art. IX. and II.,) and that infants are saved by the application 
of Christ's redemptory work, of which Baptism is the ordinary 
channel. 

II. Consubstantiation. The charge that the Lutheran Church 
holds this monstrous doctrine has been repeated times without 
number. In the face of her solemn protestations the falsehood 
consubstantia- i s s ^l circulated. It would be easy to fill many 
tion. pages with the declarations of the Confessions of 

the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and of her great theolo- 
gians, who, without a dissenting voice, repudiate this doc- 
trine, the name and the thing, in whole and in every one of its 
parts. In the " Wittenberg Concord," (1536,) prepared and 
signed by Luther and the other great leaders in the Church, it 
is said : " We deny the doctrine of transubstantiation, as we 
do also deny that the body and blood of Christ are locally 
included in the bread."* In the "Formula of Concord," f 
our confessors say : " We utterly reject and condemn the doc- 
trine of a Capernaitish eating of the body of Christ, which 
after so many protestations on our part, is maliciously imputed 
to us ; the manducation is not a thing of the senses or of rea- 
son, but supernatural, mysterious, and incomprehensible. The 
presence of Christ in the supper is not of a physical nature, 
nor earthly, nor Capernaitish, and yet it is most true." It 
would not be difficult to produce ample testimony of the same 
kind from intelligent men of other communions. One or two 
of the highest order may suffice. Bishop Waterland, in his 
great work on the Doctrine of the Eucharist, speaks thus : 
" As to Lutherans and Calvinists, however widely they may 
appear to differ in words and names, yet their ideas seem all 
to concentre in what I have mentioned. The Lutherans deny 

* In Kudelbach, 664. f Muller's ed., 543, 547. 



UBIQUITY. 131 

every article almost which they are commonly charged with 
by their adversaries. They disown assumption of the elements 
into the humanity of Christ, as likewise augmentation, and 
impanation, yea, and consubstantiation and concomitancy ; and 
if it be asked, at length, what they admit and abide by, it is a 
sacramental union, not a corporal presence." * D'Aubigne says: 
" The doctrines (on the Lord's Supper) of Luther, Zwingle, and 
Calvin were considered in ancient times as different views of 
the same truth. If Luther had yielded (at Marburg) it might 
have been feared that the Church would fall into the extremes 
of rationalism . . . Taking Luther in his best moments, we 
behold merely an essential unity and a secondary diversity in 
the two parties." 

III. Ubiquity. The Lutheran Church holds that the essen- 
tial attributes of the divine and of the human natures in Christ 
are inseparable from them, and that, therefore, the attributes 
of the one can never be the attributes of the other. But a 
large part of her greatest theologians hold, also, that as His 
human nature is taken into personal union with the divine, it 
is in consequence of that union rendered present 
through the divine, wherever the divine is ; that is, 
that the human nature of Christ, which as to its finite 
presence is in heaven, is in another sense, equally real, every- 
where present. " Our Church rejects and condemns the error 
that the human nature of Christ is locally expanded in all places 
of heaven and earth, or has become an infinite essence." f 
" If we speak of geometric locality and space, the humanity 
of Christ is not everywhere." " In its proper sense it can be 
said with truth, Christ is on earth or in His Supper only ac- 
cording to his divine nature, to wit, in the sense that the 
humanity of Christ by its own nature cannot be except in one 
place, but has the majesty (of co-presence) only from the divin- 
ity." " When the word corporeal is used of the mode of 
presence, and is equivalent to local, we affirm that the body of 
Christ is in heaven and not on earth." 

" Of a local, presence of the body of Christ, in, with, or under 
the bread, there never was any controversy between the Luther- 

* Works, Oxford, 1843, iv. 642. f Form of Concord, p. 548, 695. 



132 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ans and Calvinists ; that local presence we expressly reject and 
condemn in all onr writings. But a local absence does not 
prevent a sacramental presence, which is dependent on the 
communication of the divine Majesty." 

IV. The Lord's Day. The Augsburg Confession touches on 
this subject only incidentally in connection with the question 
of Church power. It teaches that the Jewish Sabbath is 
abolished ; that the necessity of observing the First day of the 
week rests not upon the supposition that such observance has 
in itself a justifying power, as the Romanists contended, but 
on the religious wants of men. It teaches, moreover, that the 
Lord's day is of apostolic institution. The prevalent judgment 
of the great theologians of our Church has been that 
the Sabbath was instituted at the creation of man ; 
that the generic idea it involves, requires the devoting one day 
of the week as the minimum, to rest from labor and to religious 
duties, and so far pertains to the entire race through all time ; 
and that the law of the Sabbath, so far as it is not determina- 
tive and typical, but involves principles and wants of equal 
force under both dispensations, is binding on Christians. 

An ample discussion of all the points here summarily pre- 
sented will be found in their place in this volume. 

Perhaps no stronger testimony to the general purity of the 
doctrines of the Lutheran Church could be given, than that 
which is presented in the statements of the great divines of the 
Reformed Communion. Zwingle* says: "Luther has brought 

Reformed tes- f° r th nothing novel, (nihil novi;) but that which is 
timony to theLu- laid, up in the unchanging and eternal Word of God, 
1. er zwin g ie. Ul( V he has bountifully drawn out; and has opened to 
caivm. Christians who had been misled, the heavenly treas- 

ure." Calvin : f "Call to mind with what great efficacy of 
teaching Luther hath to this time been watchful to overthrow 
the kingdom of Antichrist, and speak the doctrine of salvation." 
Anthony de Bourbon, King of Navarre, £ (1561,) said: "Lu- 

3 King of Na- * fter anc *- Calvin differed in forty points from the 
varre. Pope, and in thirty-eight of them agreed with one 

another ; there were but two points on which there was con- 

* Explai!. Art. XVIII. f Ep. ad Bullinger. J Thuanus, lib. xxvii. 



KING OF NAVARRE— ALTING. 133 

troversy between them, but in bis judgment they should unite 
their strength against the common enemy, and when he was 
overthrown it would be comparatively easy to harmonize 
on those two points, and to restore the Church of God to its 
pristine purity and splendor." Henry Alting * says, that 
one great object of his writing his book is to show " to 
those into whose hands it may come how truly both the 
Palatinate Church (which has always been regarded as 
the mother of the other churches of Germany,) and the 
other Reformed Churches with her, still adhere to the 
Augsburg Confession, and have by no means departed from 
the old profession of faith." He then takes up article by 
article, claiming that the Heidelberg Catechism and the 
Helvetic Consensus are in unity with the Augsburg Con- 
fession. Quoting the Second Article, (of original 
sin,) he says : " The Palatinate Catechism teaches 
the same thing in express words — we are all conceived and 
born in sin — and unless we be regenerated by the Holy Spirit, 
are so corrupt, that we are able to do no good whatever, and 
are inclined to all vices. It is a calumny that the Reformed 
teach that the children of believers are born holy, and with- 
out original sin." On the Third : " It is a calumny that the 
Reformed Churches dissolve the personal union of the two 
natures in Christ ; and abolish a true and real communion of 
natures (communicatio idiomatum)." In the Tenth Article (of 
the Lord's Supper) : " This is a manifest dissent of the Con- 
fession. — but not of such a character that it ought to destroy 
the unity of the faith, or distract with sects the Evangelical 
Christians — so that the dissent is not total in the doctrine of 
the Lord's Supper, neither as regards its principal thing, nor 
much less, as regards a fundamental article of faith and of the 
Christian religion." Of the Eleventh Article (of private abso- 
lution) : " The Heidelberg Catechism never condemns or abro- 
gates Confession and Private Absolution, but leaves it as a 
thing indifferent and free." "And this," he says in conclu- 
sion, " is a collation of the Augsburg, Palatinate, and Helve- 
tic Confessions, in all the articles, which most clearly exhibits 

\ Exegesis Log. et Theol. Augustan. Confess. AmsteL, 1648, 4to. 



134 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

and demonstrates their orthodox agreement in every article, 
except the Tenth, and there the disagreement is not entire." 

The illustrious Dr. Spanheim, (d. 1701,) one of the greatest 
Calvinistic divines of the seventeenth century, in his work 
on Religious Controversies, preparatory to a discussion of 
the point on which Lutherans and Calvinists differ, gives 
a sketch of the points on which they agree. 1. "Both 
Lutherans and Calvinists have the same rule and principle, 
to wit : Holy Scripture ; rejecting human and Papistical 

5. spanheim. traditions, and the decrees of the Council of 

in General. Trent. 2. Both have the same fundamental doc- 
trine as to the cause of our salvation, both the efficient and 
the meritorious cause ; as it relates to the person, verity of the 
natures and their union, the office and benefits of Christ our 
Lord ; in fine, as to the mode of justification, without the 
merits or causality of works. 3. Both have the same wor- 
ship, of the one true and triune God, and of Christ our Saviour, 
remote from all idolatry, superstition or adoration of the crea- 
ture. 4. Both hold the same duties of the Christian man, the 
requisites to sanctification. 5. Both make the same protesta- 
tion against papal errors, even in the matter of the Lord's 
Supper. They protest alike against all papal idolatry, foul 
superstitions, Romish hierarchy, cruel tyranny, impure celi- 
bacy, and idle monkery. 6. Both are under the same obliga- 
tions to forbear one another in love, in regard to those things 
which are built upon the foundation and treated in different 
ways, while the foundation itself remains unshaken. 7. Both 
finally have the same interests, the same motives for estab- 
lishing Evangelical peace, and for sanctioning if not a concord 
in all things, yet mutual toleration forever. From such a 
toleration would flow a happier propagation of the Gospel, the 
triumph of Evangelical truth, the mightier assault on Anti- 
Christ, and his final fall ; the repression of tyranny, the arrest 
of Jesuitical wiles, the assertion of Protestant liberty, the 
removal of grievous scandals, the weal of the Church and of 
the State, and the exultation of all good men. 

" I. Both Lutherans and Calvinists agree in the Article of the 
Lord's Supper, that the spiritual eating of Christ's body is 



MORE SPECIFICALLY. 135 

necessary to salvation, and to the salutary use of the Sacrament ; 
by which eating is understood the act of true faith , as it directs 
itself to the body of Christ delivered to death for More specific . 
us. and his blood shed for us, both apprehended »»y. 
and personally applied with all Christ's merits. 

"II. In the Articles of predestination, grace, and free 
will, both agree: 1. That after the fall of man, there were 
no remaining powers for spiritual good, either to begin or to 
complete : 2. That the whole matter of the salvation of man 
depends alone on the will, good pleasure, and grace of God. 

3. Neither approves the Pelagian doctrine, but each condemns 
it, and both reject Semi-Pelagianism. 

" III. In the Article of the person of Christ, both agree : 
1. That the divine and human natures are truly and personally 
united, so that Christ is God and man in unity of person ; and 
that this union is formed, without confusion or change, indivisibly 
and inseparably: 2. That the names of the natures are reciprocally 
used ; truly and in the literal sense of the words, God is man, 
man is God ; the properties of each of the natures are affirmed 
truly and really, of the whole person in the concrete ; but 
according to that nature to which those properties are peculiar, 
which is called by theologians, communicatio idiomatum (com- 
munion of properties.) 3. That the human nature of Christ 
is not intrinsically omnipotent nor omniscient ; that in the union, 
the natures conjoined remain distinct, and the essential proper- 
ties of each are secure. 4. That the human nature was lifted 
to supreme glory, and sitteth at the right hand of God. 5. Both 
reject the heresies of Nestorius, Eutyches, Marcion, Arius, 
Plotinus, Paul of Samosata, and their like. 

" IY. In the Article of holy baptism, both Lutherans and 
Calvinists agree: 1. That infants are to be baptized: 2. That 
the object of baptism is that they may be inserted into Christ, 
and spiritually regenerated : 3. That baptism is necessary, yet 
not absolutely, but so that the despising of baptism is damning : 

4. That infants have the capacity of receiving regenerating 
grace, and 5. That these things pertain to the essentials of this 
Sacrament. 

" V. As to the ceremonies, especially as regards exorcism in 



136 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the baptismal formula, both are agreed : 1. That it is not to 
be imagined that an infant is corporeally possessed by Satan: 

2. That the rite of exorcism may not be employed for any 
other end than to signify the habitual inherence of original sin : 

3. That these formulse of exorcism may be omitted, and special 
prayers be substituted therefor." 

It may be well to note that the practice of exorcism even 
with these safeguards and limitations, never was universal in 
the Lutheran Church ; never was regarded as essential by those 
who practised it, always had strong opposers among the sound- 
est men in the Church, and long ago fell into general disuse. 
It never could have been styled, without qualification, a Lu- 
theran usage. All that could with truth have been said, at 
any time, was that the Lutheran Church in this or that country, 
retained it in the exercise of church liberty, among things 
indifferent. Lutheran unity is based upon heartfelt consent in 
the doctrines of the Gospel, and in the essential parts of the 
administration of the Sacraments, and consistency, as Lu- 
therans, requires no more than that we should maintain and 
defend these. So much it does demand, but it demands no 
more. 

Claude,* one of the greatest theologians of the French 
Reformed Church, says : " Those of the Augsburg Confession 
(who are called Lutherans) are in difference with us only 
about the point of the real presence, and about some questions 
of the schools which we cannot yet impute to their whole 
body ; and as for the rest, they reject with us the invocation 
of saints, religious worship of images, human satisfactions, 
indulgences, purgatory, worship of relics, the pub- 
lic service in an unknown tongue, the merit of 
good works, transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, the 
supremacy of the Pope, the opinion of the infallibility of the 
church, and the principle of blind obedience to the decisions 
of councils. They acknowledge the Scriptures to be the only 
rule of faith ; they carefully practise the reading of them ; 
they own their sufficiency ; they believe their authority, inde- 

* Defence of the Reformation, 1673, translated by T. B., London, 1815, vol. i., 
p. 291. 



THE CHURCH OF GENEVA — PICTETUS. 137 

pendent of that of the Church ; they distinctly explain the 
doctrine of justification, and that of the use of the Law, and 
its distinction from the Gospel ; they do not conceive amiss of 
the nature of faith, and that of good works ; and as for popu- 
lar superstitions, we can scarce see any reign among them." 

John Alphonsus Turretin * has collected a great body of 
witnesses whose testimony tends to the same gen- 

• «i -t i t • n 7. J. Turretin. 

eral point : the possibility and desirableness of con- 
cord between the Lutherans and the Reformed. He argues 
for the same position at great length, on the same general 
grounds with the divines we have quoted. 

The pastors of the church at Geneva, and the Professors in 
its Academy, in their letter to Wake, Archbishop 
of Canterbury, (1719,) say : " As regards our Lu- Ge 8 ; e ^ urcb of 
theran brethren, we doubt not that you are aware 
what exhibitions of love, what ardent desire (cupidinem) of hav- 
ing concord with them our Church has shown at all times." 

Pictetus (d. 1724) thus addresses the theologians of the 
Augsburg Confession :+ "Let the names of Luther- 

& & . . ' 9. Pictetus. 

ans and Calvinists be blotted out, let altar no more 
be set up against altar. happy day, in which all your 
churches and ours shall embrace each other, and with right 
hands joined and with souls united we shall coalesce into one 
body, (in unum corpus coalescimus,) with the benediction of 
God, the plaudits of angels, the exultation of holy men." 

The object of these citations is to show that, judged by candid 
and great men who are not of her communion, the Lutheran 
Church is pure in all the fundamental doctrines of the Christian 
faith, a Church to be revered and loved even by those who 
cannot in all respects unite in her Confession. 

According to the simple and sublime principles of the New 
Testament, accepted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church, true 
church unity rests upon the common acceptance of the funda- 
mental doctrines of the Gospel in the same sense, and in 
agreement in the Scriptural essentials of the administration 
of the Sacraments. On the second point we are in unity with 

* Nubes Testium, Genevse, 1719, 4to. 

f Dissert, de Consens. ac Dissens. int. Reform, et Aug. Conf. Fratres, 1697. 



communions. 



138 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

all Evangelical and Protestant bodies except the Baptists, and 
with them we here fail of unity not because of their 

Kelations of the . „ . . i • i n -i • i 

Lutheran church practice oi immersion, which, as a tree mode, might 
Q he allowed simply as a matter of preference, hut in 
regard to their doctrine of its necessity, and in 
that they deviate from the Scripture essential of baptism as to 
its proper subjects, excluding from it children, to whom God 
has given it. In regard to the externals of the Lord's Supper, 
the Lutheran Church has nothing to prevent unity with the 
rest of the Evangelical Protestant world. To her, questions 
of kneeling, sitting, standing, of leavened or unleavened 
bread, or of its thickness, are questions dismissed from the 
sphere of essentials into that of the liberty of 

True unity. 

the Church. They have nothing to do with the 
essence of unity. The Presbyterian is none the less one with 
us because he sits at the table while we kneel or stand, unless 
he construes into a matter of conscience a thing in itself 
indifferent, neither enjoined nor forbidden. Luther* says: 
u Fix steadfastly on this sole question, What is that which 
makes a Christian ? Permit no question to be put on a level 
with this. If any one brings up a matter, ask him at once : 
' Do these things also make a man a Christian ? ' If he answer, 
No, let them all go." If Luther's life seemed largely one of 
warfare, it was not that he did not love peace much, but that 
he loved truth more. He could not take Zwingle's hand at 
Marburg, (1529,) because that would have meant that the great 
point which divided them was not an article of faith, and Luther 
believed in his inmost heart that it was ; but he prepared and 
signed his name to the Declaration then set forth, " that both 
sides, to the extent to which the conscience of either could 
bear it, were bound to exercise mutual charity — both were 
bound earnestly and unremittingly to implore Almighty God, 
that through his Spirit he would vouchsafe to confirm us in 
the true doctrine." The Wittenberg Concord, between Lu- 
ther, Melanchthon, and others, upon one side, and Capito, 

* Epistle to the Strasburgers, (1524,) occasioned by Carlstadt's doctrine of the 
Lord's Supper, and his fanaticism. Briefe, De Wette. ii. 514, Leipz., xix. 225. 
Walch., xv. 2444. 



TRUE UNITY. 139 

Bucer, and their associates, (1536,) on the other, filled the heart 
of Luther with pure joy. "When no principle was endangered 
Luther could he as gentle as Melanchthon. "When the intelli- 
gence reached Luther that the Swiss had accepted the Witten- 
berg Concord, he wrote to Meyer, the burgomaster of Basel 
(February 17, 1537) : "I have marked with the greatest joy 
your earnestness in promoting the Gospel of Christ. God 
grant us increasing grace that we may harmonize more and 
more in a true, pure unity, in a sure accordant doctrine and 
view . . that to this end we forgive one another, and N". B.," 
(the nota bene is Luther's,) "bear with one another as God the 
Father forgives us and bears with us in Christ. We must for- 
get the strifes and smarts of the past, and strive for unity with 
patience, meekness, kindly colloquies, but most of all with 
heartfelt prayer to God, the Father, the Father of all concord 
and love." * On December 1, of the same year, Luther wrote an 
official reply to the letter of the representatives of the Swiss 
Church. He addresses them as " venerable, dear sirs, and 
friends," and wishes them "grace and peace in Christ our 
Lord and Saviour," and goes on to say: " I rejoice that the 
old bitterness and suspicion, between us, have been laid aside, 
and that you propose, in great earnestness, to promote concord. 
God himself will graciously consummate a work so well begun. 
It cannot indeed but be that so great a schism will not heal 
easily, and leave no scar. There will be some, both with you 
and with us, who will not be pleased with this Concord, but 
will regard it with suspicion. But if there be earnestness and 
diligent effort on both sides, by God's grace, the opposition will 
die out, (zu Tod blut,) and the raging waters will be calmed. 
Certainly, if strife and clamor could accomplish anything, we 
have had enough of them. God is my witness that nothing 
shall be wanting on my part to promote concord. This dis- 
cord has never benefited me or others, but has done great mis- 
chief. ~No good ever was, or ever is to be hoped from it." On 
the Lord's Supper, on which the Concord had seemed to embody 
a substantial agreement, Luther, in a few words, shows how 
greatly he had been misunderstood, and then adds: " Yet, as 

* Luther's Briefe, De Wette, v. 54, Walch. xxi. 1282. 



140 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

I said before, where we in this point (hierin) have not come 
fully to an understanding, (wir nicht ganzlich verstlinden,) the 
best thing for the present (itzt) is that we be friendly to each 
other, that we put the best construction on each others' acts, 
(das beste zu einander versehen,) till the mire (Glum) that has 
been stirred up settles. On our side, and I speak especially for 
my own person, (sonderlich mein person halben,) we will, from 
the heart, dismiss all unkindness and regard you with confi- 
dence and love. When we have done all in our power, we still 
need God's great help and counsel. We need not indulge the 
disposition to suspect each other, and stir up strife, for Satan, 
who hates us and the Concord, will find his own, to throw trees 
and rocks on the way. Let it be our part to give each other 
our hearts and hands (die herzen und hand einander reichen) 
to hold fast with equal firmness, lest the after state of things 
be worse than the first. May the Holy Ghost fuse our hearts 
together in Christian love and purpose, and purge away all the 
dross of suspicion, to the glory of His sacred name, and to the 
salvation of many souls." * 

A similar spirit is breathed in Luther's letter of reply to the 
Council of the Reformed Churches of Switzerland held in Zurich, 
1528 : " I beseech you that you go on, as you have begun, to 
aid in consummating this divine work, of the peace and unity 
of the Christian Church, as I doubt not ye are ready with all 
joyfulness to do,"f To the Council at Strasburg, Luther had 
written (May 29, 1536) : " There shall be nothing lacking on 
my part, whether of act or of suffering, which can contribute to a 
genuine, thorough, steadfast unity, for what are the results of 
the dissensions of the Churches, experience, alas ! has taught 
us." % 

Luther's cordial spirit toward the Waldenses, his fervent 
appeals to them when it was rumored that they were about mak- 
ing peace with Rome, his noble witness to his fellowship with 

* Luther's Briefe, De Wette, v. 83 : Leipz. xxi. 107. Walch. xvii. 2594. In 
Latin: Hospinian. H. S. i. 275. Buddeus: 258. 

•j-L.'s Briefe, De Wette, v. 120. Leipz. xxi. 110. Walch. xvii. 2617. Latin: 
Hospin. H. S. ii. 164. Buddeus, 292. 

% Briefe, De Wette, iv. 692. Leipz. xxi. 106. Walch, xvii. 2566. Latin : Bud- 
deus, 251. 



LUTHERANISM NOT HIGH- CHUB CHISM. 141 

Huss and Jerome of Prague, reveal his large catholic heart. 
Nor even in the ardor of his bitterest conflict with Rome did 
he ignore the truly Christian elements and great blessings 
which had been perpetuated in the Church of the West. He 
distinguished between Popery in the Church of Rome, and 
the Church of Rome herself, and between the false living rep- 
resentatives of the Roman Church, and her ancient, true rep- 
resentatives. From the true ancient Roman Church as known 
in the writings of the earliest Fathers, neither Luther nor the 
Lutheran Church ever separated. It was the true old Roman 
Church which in the Reformation revived, over against the 
modern corrupted Church of Rome. Not destruction, not revolu- 
tion, but reformation, w T as that at which Luther aimed, and re- 
formation is not revolution, but the great preventive of it. If 
Europe passed through revolutionary convulsions in and after 
the sixteenth century, it was not because Reformation was 
accepted, but because it was resisted. 

Against the High-Churchism, which makes dividing walls 
of forms, ceremonies, modes of government, the Lutheran 
Church enters a living protest. " "Where," says Luther, " the 
Gospel is rightly and purely preached, there must be a Holy 
Christian Church."* "The Holy Church Universal is pre- 
eminently a fellowship whose internal bond is faith and the 
Holy Spirit in the heart, and whose outward token is the pure 
Word and the incorrupt Sacraments. The Lutheranismnot 
Church is a communion of saints, to wit, the assem- nigh-churchism. 
bly of saints who are in the fellowship of the same Gospel or 
doctrine, and of the same Holy Spirit, who renews, sanctifies, 
and governs the heart. 1 ' f The unchanging marks of the 
Church are " the pure doctrine of the Gospel and the Sacra- 
ments. That Church which has these is alone properly the 
pillar of the truth, because it retains the pure Gospel, and as 
St. Paul saith, the foundation, that is the true knowledge of 
Christ, and true faith in him." 

With every external human thing alike there is no unity if 
the parts of a communion are alien in faith. On the other 
hand, with every external human thing diverse, there is unity 

* Werke, Jena, vi. 109, (103.) f Apology, (Art. IV.) 



142 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

if there be harmony in faith. Our Church desires uniformity 
not as if it were itself unity, or could be made a substitute for 
it, but because it illustrates unity, and is one of its natural 
tendencies and its safeguard. If there be a High-Churchism 
genuinely Lutheran, it is a very different thing from that 
which bears that name in other churches. The Lutheran 
Church does claim that it is God's truth which she confesses, 
aud by logical necessity regards the deviations from the doctrines 
of the Confession as deviations from divine truth, but she does 
not claim to be the whole Church. " The Christian Church 
and Christian holiness, both name and thing, are the common 
possession of all churches and Christians in the world."* It 
is enough for her to know that she is a genuine part of it, and 
she can rejoice, and does rejoice, that the Saviour she loves has 
his own true followers in every part of Christendom. She says : 
Liberality and " The Catholic [Christian] Church consists of men 
charity of the scattered throughout the whole world, from the 
rising of the sun to the going down thereof." f She 
unchurches none of other names, even though they may be 
unsound. It is not her business to do this. They have their 
own Master, to whom they stand or fall. She protests against 
error ; she removes it by spiritual means from her own midst ; 
but she judges not those who are without. God is her judge 
and theirs, and to Him she commits herself and them. Our 
Church confesses " that among those who are upon the true 
foundation there are many weak ones, who build upon the 
foundation perishing stubble, that is, empty human notions and 
opinions, and yet because they do not overthrow the founda- 
tion, are still Christians, and their faults may be forgiven them, 
or even be emeuded." X "An error," says Luther, "however 
great it may be, neither can be called heresy, nor is heresy, 
unless it be held and defended obstinately as right." "Erring 
makes no heretics ; but the defending and protecting error with 
stiffness of neck, does." "There never has been a heresy 
which did not also affirm some truth. Wherefore we must not 
deny the truth (it contains) on account of the falsehood (it 
mixes with it)." § " Heretics not merely err, but refuse to be 

* Luther. f Apology, Art. IV. % Apology, Art. IV. 

I Werke, Walch. xxi. 120 ; xviii. 1771 ; iii. 2294. 



LIBERALITY AND CHARITY. 143 

taught ; they defend their error as right, and fight against 
known truth, and against their own consciences — self-willed 
and consciously they remain in their error." "It is not right, 
and I am truly sorry that these miserable people are murdered, 
burnt, and executed. Every one should be left to believe what 
he will, (man sollte ja einen jeglichen lassen glauben was er 
wollte.) How easy is it to err ! Let us ward against them 
with the Scripture, not with fire." * 

It is not charity to bear with others because the differences 
between us are trifling ; it is charity to bear with them although 
the differences are great. Charity does not cover error ; because 
error is the daughter of sin, and charity is the daughter of 
God. Charity covers errorists so far as she may without pal- 
liating their errors, for the errorist, as a man, is God's child. 
Charity is the reflex of love to God, and our Church, there- 
fore, is loyal to his truth even when she is most tender to those 
who err from that truth. If there have been bigoted, inquisi- 
torial, and harsh judges of others who bear her name, it is not 
from her they derived these peculiarities, and such men know 
not the spirit they are of. Never are great systems more cruelly 
misrepresented than by some who claim to be their friends. 
"While, therefore, many of the pretended representations of Lu- 
theran theology have been gross misrepresentations, they have 
not always been the result of ignorance, or of malice, but have 
proceeded from nominal friends, sometimes from timidity of 
character, and sometimes from a harsh, fierce spirit, which 
delights to aggravate differences, and make them hopeless. This 
aggravation has been made by enemies from hatred of the sys- 
tem. They wished to excite disgust at it. But the same sort 
of representation has also been made by a different class, who 
were moved by hatred to other systems, quite as much as by 
love to the system they espoused. They considered the Lu- 
theran system not only as true, but as in such sense having all 
the truth, that no other church has the least share of it. They 
were not satisfied with showing that others are less scrip- 
tural than ourselves, or in important respects depart from the 
teachings of the Word, but they were determined to show that 

*Werke, Walch. xvii. 2624. 



144 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

they are scriptural in nothing. Such hopeless errorists are not 
sound, on the showing of these polemics, even on the general 
truths of the Apostles' Creed : they are doubters of the very 
elements of Christianity : they are on the way to Atheism, 
only kept from running into it by their fear or by their ina- 
bility to follow their premises to their fair conclusions. It is 
true, the most extravagant of this school in the Lutheran 
Church have been far outstripped in their exclusiveness by sec- 
tarians of different kinds : but this is no apology for them. 
A Church so large-hearted, so truly catholic in her genius, and 
so mild in her spirit as is the Lutheran, expects better things 
of her children. As she does not rear them with a sectarian 
bias, she cannot allow them to plead sectarian excesses as an 
offset to their own. In treating of the doctrines of such a 
Church, men should be thoroughly acquainted with them, 
deeply convinced of their truth, and transformed by their 
power ; and men of this stamp will develop them not in a 
little, sectarian spirit, but with a largeness and nobleness of 
mind, which will attest the moral power of the truth they 
hold. If our Church ever could have been moved to a dif- 
ferent spirit, it would have been during those exasperating con- 
troversies with open enemies, and still more with false breth- 
ren, which led to the preparation of the Formula of Concord. 
Yet, in the Preface to the book in which that Formula was 

embodied, the Electors, Princes, and Orders of the 
agai^r^pTr- Empire thus declare themselves : "It is by no 
secution of other m eans our w i\\ anc [ intent, in the condemnation of 

false and impious doctrines, to condemn those who 
err from simplicity, and who do not blaspheme the truth of 
God's Word. Still less do we wish to condemn whole churches 
either within the bounds of the German Empire or beyond it, 
. . . for we entertain no doubt whatever (ganz und gar keinen 
zweifel machen) that many pious and good people are to be 
found in those churches also, which to this time have not 
thought in all respects with us ; persons who walk in the sim- 
plicity of their hearts, not clearly understanding the points 
involved, . . . and who, it is to be hoped, if they were rightly 
instructed in the doctrine, through the guidance of the Holy 



OFFICIAL PROTEST. 145 

Spirit, into the unerring truth of God's Word, would consent 
with us. . . . And on all the theologians and ministers of the 
Church is the duty specially incumbent to admonish, and teach 
out of God's "Word with moderation those who err from the 
truth through simplicity or ignorance, lest the blind leading 
the blind, both perish. Wherefore, in this our writing, in the 
presence of Almighty God and before the whole Church, we 
testify that it was never our purpose, by this Christian Formula 
of conciliation, to create trouble or peril for those poor op- 
pressed Christians who are now enduring persecution. . . . For, 
as moved by Christian love, we long ago entered into the com- 
panionship of suffering with them, so do we abhor and from 
our soul detest the persecution and most grievous tyranny which 
has been directed against these hapless persons. In no degree 
or respect do we consent to this shedding of innocent blood, 
which doubtless, in the awful judgment of God, and before the 
tribunal of Christ, will be strictly demanded at the hands of 
their persecutors." This plea and protest of the Lutheran 
Princes and Estates was made specially in behalf of the 
Huguenots, the French Calvinists, whose bitter sufferings had 
culminated in the frightful massacre of St. Bartholomew, 
(August 24, 1572.) 

The Princes and Estates add, to show that their charity was 
a heavenly love, and not the indolent passiveness of laxity in 
doctrine : " Our intent has been . . . that no other doctrine 
than that which is founded in God's Word, and is contained in 
the Augsburg Confession and its Apology, accepted in their 
genuine sense, should be set forth in our lands, provinces, 
schools, and churches, ... in order that among our posterity 
also the pure doctrine and confession of the faith may be pre- 
served and propagated, through the aid of the Holy Spirit, 
until the glorious coming of our only Eedeemer and Saviour 
Jesus Christ." These are words to stir the inmost heart. Alike 
in their revelation of faith, hope, and charity, they are words 
without a parallel in the history of churches. Where, among 
Confessions, but in the Confession of the Lutheran Church, is 
there so tender, so apologetic, a reference to those differing in 
faith ? Where, but in it, is there so noble a confession of the 

10 



146 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

fellowship of saints, and so hopeful an expression of confidence 
in the better mind and sincerity of those who err ; where is 
there so brave, earnest, and heartfelt an allusion to the trials 
of those of another communion ? so sublime a protest against 
their persecution, and consequently against all persecution for 
conscience' sake? God grant that the spirit of these holy 
men may be perpetuated in the church which they so signally 
served in their generation, and that their devout aspirations 
may be fulfilled, that when the Son of Man cometh, he may 
find faith on the earth still shedding its holy light in the midst 
of those whose fathers loved him so purely, loved his Truth so 
fervently ; and yet, like their Master, refused to call down fire 
from heaven on those who followed not with them. 

In affinity with this spirit, a great living theologian in Ger- 
many has said : "I think I may say, I am not conscious oibelong- 
ing to any party, but have followed truth alone. In the path- 
way of my search for truth, I was led to Jesus Christ, who is 
the truth, and by him was led to the Lutheran Church, which 
I have held, and do now hold to be not the only true church, 

BUT THE PILLAR OF THE TRUTH IN THE CHURCH UNIVERSAL. I 

know, moreover, that he only who has received the spirit of this 
Church, who stands immovably on the foundation of the Apos- 
tles and Prophets, who lives in the fixed conviction that the 
Confession of the Lutheran Church is in its very essence in con- 
sonance with the pure gospel, and who yet has felt the influ- 
ence of the past three centuries, I know that he only has an 
oecumenical mind and catholic heart for that which is true in all 
churches ; he only has an ear for the harmonies of truth which 
still ring out from the dissonances of the countless varieties 
of the notes of our times. I have never shrunk from the 
reproach of orthodoxy, so far as its cause is the cause of 
Christ, and yet I have constantly said that I could not be 
the defender of those who seek in the faith of the Church 
that only which is old, fixed, and finished. With justice, we 
withdraw our confidence from a theological writer who vio- 
lently rushes from one extreme, to another. But can we, on 
the other hand, trust a theologian of whom we know that, 
having once taken a position, it is entirely impossible for him 



CONTROVERSIES. 147 

forever after to doubt its correctness. Truth gives itself only 
to him who seeks it, but he who seeks it will not find it, if he 
can let nothing go." 

The life of a Church may be largely read in its controversies. 
As the glory or shame of a nation is read upon its battle-fields 
which tells for what it perilled the lives of its sons, so may the 
glory or shame of a Church be determined when we know 
what it fought for and what it fought against ; controversies 
how much it valued what it believed to be truth ; of the 1*^™ 
what was the truth it valued ; how much it did, 
and how much it suffered to maintain that truth, and what was 
the issue of its struggles and sacrifices. Tested in all these 
ways, the record of the Lutheran Church is incomparably glo- 
rious. It has contended for great truths at great sacrifices, 
and in every conflict in which it has borne a part, truth has 
ultimately been victorious. A Church which contends for 
nothing, either has lost the truth, or has ceased to love it. 
Warfare is painful, but they wmose errors create the necessity 
for it are responsible for all its miseries. At times, especially 
in the early history of the Lutheran Church, there arose con- 
troversies, the most important of which were: 1, the Philip- 
istic, arising from the excessive desire of Melanchthon and his 
school to harmonize with the Roman Catholics and the Re- 
formed ; 2, the Antinomistic (1537 -'40, 1556), caused by the 
effort of Agricola to introduce what has been called a " Pela- 
gianism of the Gospel ; " 3, the Osiandrian (1550 -'67), so called 
from Osiander, who confounded sanctification with justifica- 
tion ; 4, the Adiaphoristic (1548 -'55); 5, the Majoristic 
(1551 -'52), on the necessity of good works ; 6, the Synergistic 
(1555 -'67), on the co-operation of the human will in conver- 
sion, in the course of which Flacius spoke of original sin as 
substantial, not accidental ; 7, the Crypto-Calvinistic (1552-'74). 
The view of Calvin in regard to the Lord's supper was so much 
profounder than that of Zwingli, (which Calvin strongly con- 
demned,) and indeed in some aspects so Lutheranizing that Me- 
lanchthon, without abandoning the Lutheran view, thought 
that Calvin's might be tolerated, and the points of difference 
ignored in the Confessions. This position was assailed by the 



148 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

stricter Lutherans. In the course of controversy the more 
general questions connected with the person of Christ were 
discussed. All these questions were settled in the " Form of 
Concord," (1577.) So deeply was the church grounded in fun- 
damental unity of faith, that none of these controversies, vio- 
lent as some of them were, were able to rend it into denomina- 
tional fragments. The subsequent controversies have been on 
syncretism (1655), pietism (1686), and rationalism (17<">1), and 
those connected with the Union and the revival of Lutheran- 
ism (from 1817, Harms's Theses, to the present hour). 

Theological science nourished in the sixteenth century most 
of all in the universities of Wittenberg, Tubingen, Strasbourg, 
Marburg, and Jena. To this era belong Luther, Melanchthon, 
Flacius, Chemnitz, Brentius, and Chytrseus. In the seventeenth 
century occur the names of Glassius, Pfeiffer, Erasmus Schmidt, 
Hakspau, Gier, Seb. Schmidt, Calovius ; in dogmatics, Hutter, 
Gerhard, Quenstedt, Calixtus, Hunnius ; in church history, 
Eechenberg, Ittig, Sagittarius, Seckendorf, and Arnold. In 
the eighteenth century, Loscher closes the ancient school ; and 
the Pietistic school, practical rather than scientific, is illustrated 
by Lange. The Conservative Pietistie, avoiding the faults of the 
others and combining their virtues, embraces Hollazius, Starck, 
Bucldeus, Cyprian, J. C. Wolf, Weismann, Deyling, Carpzov, 
J. H. and C. B. Michaelis, J. G. Walch, Pfaff, Mosheim, Ben- 
gel, and Crusius. The school which treated theology after the 
'philosophical method of Wolf numbers S. J. Baumgarten, Rein- 
beck, and Carpzov ; to the transitional school belong Ernesti, 
J. D. Michaelis, Semler, who prepared the way for rationalism, 
and Zollner ; the principal members of the rationalistic school 
Theological sci- were Greisbach, Koppe, J. G. Rosenmuller, Eich- 
n the lu- horn, Gabler, Bertholdt, Henke, Spittler, Eberhard, 
and A. H. Memeyer. Of the supranaturalistic 
school, abandoning the ancient orthodoxy in various degrees, 
but still maintaining more or less of the fundamentals of gen- 
eral Christianity, are Morus, Doderlein, Seiler, Storr, Knapp, 
Reinhard, Lilienthal, and Koppen ; and in church history, 
Schrockh, C. W. F. Walch, Staudlin, and Planck. The 
founder of the distinctive theology of the nineteenth century was 



ence 1 

theran Church. 



THEOLOGICAL SCIENCE. 149 

Schleiermacher (died 1834), the greatest of the defenders of 
the union between the Lutheran and Reformed Churches of 
Germany. Influencing all schools, he can be claimed for none. 
Meander may be classed as pietistic supranaturalist, De "Wette 
as historico-critical rationalist, Hase as philosophico-sesthetic 
rationalist. The chief defenders of the vulgar ration- 
alism are Rohr, Paulus, Wegsch eider, Bretschneider, and 
Amnion ; of historico-critical rationalism, Winer, Fritzsche, 
Credner, Schulz, Von Colin, Riickert, Gesenius, Tuch, 
Knobel, Hupfeld, Hitzig, Ewald, Bertheau, and Len- 
gerke. The rational supranaturalistic school is represented by 
Tzschirner, Tittmann, C. F. K. Rosenmiiller, and Baumgarten- 
Crusius ; supranatnralism proper, or suprarationalism, by E. G. 
Bengel, Flatt, Heubner, Augusti, Hahn, Bohmer ; pietistic 
supranaturalism by Tholuck (who approached more closely in 
the course of his studies to a thoroughly Lutheran position), 
Hengstenberg, Olshausen, Stier, Havernick, Steiger, and Bun- 
sen in his early position, though in his latest years a ration- 
alist. The representatives of the "new" or " German" theol- 
ogy, of the school of Schleiermacher, of Lutheran origin, are 
Liicke, Mtzsch, Julius Miiller, Ullmann, Twesten, Dorner, 
Liebner, and Martensen ; also Rothe, I. T. Beck, Auberlen, 
Umbreit, Bleek, H. A. W. Meyer, Huther, Wieseler, and 
Tischendorf. The writers of the nineteenth century whose 
names we have given are or were within the "Union," and 
defenders of it, with a few exceptions. 

The representatives of the Lutheran theology, for the most 
part, in its strictest sense, are Claus Harms, who struck the 
first decisive blow at rationalism (1817), Scheibel, Sartorius, 
Rudelbach, of Denmark, Guericke, Harless, Hofling, Thoma- 
sius, Philippi, Harnack, Dieckhof, Lohe, Vilmar, Krabbe,Klie- 
foth, Delitzsch, M. Baumgarten, Luthardt, Dreschler, Caspari, 
Oehler, Keil, Zochler, and J. II. Kurtz. Two distinguished 
jurists, K. F. Goschel and F. J. Stahl, are to be included 
among the defenders of the Lutheran confession. 

Among the names which once took undisputed place in 
this part of the roll of honor, are three which have dropped 
from it, J. C. K. v. Hofmann, Thiersch, and Kahnis — the last 



150 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

by his assent to the rationalistic Criticism of the Canon, his 
rejection of the Chnrch Doctrine of the Trinity, and his denial 
of the supreme divinity of the Son and the Spirit (subordin- 
atism), and by his rejection of the Lutheran Exegesis of the 
Words of the Institution of the Supper, while he yet professes 
to hold fast to the substance of the Lutheran Doctrine of the 
Eucharist. 

If the Nineteenth Century has not been an era of the most 
safe and solid thinking, it has, beyond all dispute, been the 
most brilliant era in the history of theological science ; and 
alike of the inventiveness that glittered, and of the sobriety 
that restrained, the theological impulse which the world owes 
to the Lutheran Church, has been the spring. 

In the United States the energies of the best men in the 
Church have been directed mainly into the channels of prac- 
tical activity ; yet there has nevertheless been an honorable 
exhibition of theological ability and learning. Among the 
names of those to whom we owe books, either as writers, 
translators, or editors, may be mentioned: Anspach; Bach- 
man; S. K. Brobst ; F. W. Conrad; Demme ; G.Diehl; L. 
Eichelberger ; Endress ; Goering ; Greenwald ; S. "W. Harkey ; 
Hazelius ; Helmuth ; the Henkels, Paul, D. M., Ambrose, and 
Socrates ; J. N. Hoffman ; Hutter ; M. Jacobs ; Henry Jacobs ; 
E. W. G. Keyl; C. Philip Krauth ; Krotel ; Kunze; B. Kurtz; 
Lape ; Lintner ; the Lochmans, J. G. and A. H. ; Loy ; W. 
J. Mann; P. F. Mayer; John McCron ; Mealy; F. Y. Mels- 
heimer ; C. B. Miller ; J. G. Morris ; the Muhlenbergs, H. M., 
H. E.,F. A. ; Norelius; Officer; Oswald; Passavant ; Peixoto; 
Pohlman; Preus ; Probst; Quitman; Eeynolds ; Salyards ; 
the Shaeffers, F. D., D. F., F. C, C. F., C. W. ; H. I. Schmidt; 
J. G. Schmauck ; the Schmuckers, J. G., S. S., B. M. ; Seiss ; 
Seyffarth ; Sheeleigh ; G. Shober ; C. A. Smith ; J. Few Smith ; 
M. L. Steover; F. C. Stohlman; T. Stork; P. A. Strobel ; 
Stuckenberg ; Titus ; Yan Alstine ; Yogelbach ; Wackerha- 
gen ; C. F. W. Walther ; Weiser ; D. Worley ; F. C. Wyne- 
ken. There are others worthy of a place in our list of authors, 
but as they have not put their labors into the permanent shape 



EDUCATION IN THE LUTHERAN CHURCH 151 

of books, it does not fall within our plan to enumerate 
them.* 

The imperfect list we give of the great names in our Church, 
especially in Germany, may serve to explain the strong terms 
in which writers of other churches have felt themselves 
constrained to speak of Lutheran theology : " The Lutheran 
Church has a great pre-eminence over the Reformed in regard 
to its internal theological development. German theological 
science conies forth from the Lutheran Church. The theology 
of the Lutheran Church supported by German diligence, thor- 
oughness, and profundity, stage by stage, amid manifold strug- 
gles and revolutions, arose to an amazing elevation, astounding 
and incomprehensible to the Swiss, the French, and the Eng- 
lish." f " The Lutheran Church," says Lange, " is the Church 
of theologians."^: 

At once as a cause and a result of this greatness in the 
highest form of learning, may be regarded the fact that the 
Lutheran Church is an Educating Church from the humblest 
sphere of the children of the poor to the highest range of the 
scholar's erudition. 

The early efforts of Luther in behalf of education were 
continued by his successors through the means of catechetical 
instruction, congregational and public schools, and universities. 
There are no exclusively Reformed universities in Germany 
proper. The universities which the Lutheran Church has in 
part or in whole may be classified as follows : 1, those in which 
the three confessions are represented — Tubingen, Giessen, 
Breslau, and Bonn ; 2, the two confessions, Lutheran and 
Reformed — Heidelberg, Greifswalde, Marburg, Kbnigsberg, 
Halle, Erlangen, (the professors Lutheran with one . 

exception,) and Berlin ; 3, exclusively Lutheran — the Lutheran 
Leipsic, Rostock, (Wittenberg, transferred to Halle 
in 1817, now a seminary for candidates for the ministry,) Jena, 
Kiel, and Gottiugen; in Denmark, Copenhagen; in Norway, 
Christiania ; in Sweden, Lund and Upsal ; in Russia, Dorpat. 

* For the completest list of ''Publications by Lutherans in the United States," 
up to 1861, see Evangelical Review, April, 1861, 542. 
f Goebel, 263, 277. % Kurtz, \ 176, 6. 



152 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

In the United States she has fourteen Theological Seminaries, 
sixteen Universities and Colleges, nine Female Academies, 
sixteen Academies, and various societies for Education and 
Publication. The Periodicals devoted to her interests are, 
nine English, fifteen German, two Norwegian, two Swedish. 

Nor has the Lutheran Church been satisfied with meeting 
the wants of her own children. She has been, and is a Church 
of Missions. In 1559, Gustavus Yasa, of Sweden, founded a 
mission among the Laplanders, which was continued with 
renewed earnestness by Gustavus Adolphus, Denmark also 
aiding. Thomas von Westen (died 1727) was the apostle of 
this mission. Heyling, of Lubeck, without any aid, labored 
as a missionary in Abyssinia, (1635,) and others, of the circle 
of his friends, engaged in the same cause in various parts of 
the East. Frederick IV., of Denmark, established the East 
India mission at Tranquebar, (1706,) for which Fran eke fur- 
nished him two devoted laborers, Pliitzschau and 

Missions. 

Ziegenbalg, the latter of whom translated the New 
Testament into Tamil, (1715.) The labors of this mission 
were also extended to the English possessions. From the 
orphan-house at Halle went forth a succession of missionaries, 
among whom Schwartz (died 1798) is pre-eminent. An insti- 
tution for the conversion of the Jews was established at Halle, 
in 1728. Egede of Norway (died 1758) commenced his labors in 
Greenland, in 1721. In 1736, he returned, and established in 
Copenhagen a mission seminary. Though the larger part of the 
Lutheran Church is unfavorably situated for Foreign Missions, 
the work has ever been dear to her — and her missions have 
been, and are now among the most successful in the world. 

Many embarrassing circumstances prevented the Lutheran 
Church from developing her life as perfectly in her church 
constitution as in her doctrines and worship. The idea 
of the universal priesthood of all believers at once over- 
churchConsti- threw the doctrine of a distinction of essence 
intion. between clergy and laity. The ministry is not 

an order, but it is a divinely appointed office, to which men 
must be rightly called. No imparity exists by divine right ; 
an hierarchical organization is unchristian, but a gradation 



DIVINE WORSHIP. 153 

(bishops, superintendents, provosts) may be observed, as a 
thing of human right only. The government by consistories 
has been very general. In Denmark, Evangelical bishops 
took the place of the Roman Catholic prelates who were 
deposed. In Sweden the bishops embraced the Reformation, 
and thus secured in that country an "apostolic succession" 
in the high-church sense; though, on the principles of the 
Lutheran Church, alike where she has as where she has not 
such a succession, it is not regarded as essential even to the 
order of the Church. The ultimate source of power is in the 
congregations, that is, in the pastor and other officers and the 
people of the single communions. The right to choose a pas- 
tor belongs to the people, who may exercise it by direct vote, 
or delegate it to their representatives. 

The Lutheran Church regards preaching as an indispen- 
sable part of a complete divine service. All worship is to 
be in the vernacular ; the wants of the heart as well as of the 
reason are to be met. Whatever of the past is spiritual, beau- 
tiful, and appropriate, is to be retained. The church year, 
with its great festivals, is kept. "With various national diver- 
sities there is a substantial agreement in the liturgical services 
of the Lutheran Church throughout almost all the world. 
The hymns are sung by all the people with the Divine wor- 
organ accompaniment. The clergymen in their ship " 
official functions wear a distinctive dress, usually a black robe, 
with the bands, though the surplice has also been largely 
retained. In Denmark and Sweden, the chasuble is also 
worn in the altar service ; and in Sweden, the mitre and 
bishop's crosier are retained. A preparatory service pre- 
cedes communion. The doctrine and practice of auricular 
confession were rejected at the beginning. The "private 
confession," which was established in some parts of the 
Church, involves no enumeration or confession of particular 
sins whatever, unless the communicant desires to speak of 
them ; and the " private absolution " is simply the annun- 
ciation of the gospel promise with the gospel conditions to 
the individual penitent, a promise which in its own nature 
is collative, that is, actually confers remission, when it is re- 



154 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ceived in faith. The " Exorcism " in the shape in which it 
existed in some of the Lutheran Churches, involved little 
more than " the Renunciation," and can he defended on 
some of the same grounds. Simply as a rite long estab- 
lished, and which might be tolerated if regarded as no 
more than a symbolical representation of the doctrine that 
our nature is under the dominion of sin, it was practised in 
parts of the Church, but has fallen everywhere into oblivion. 
Persons are received to the communion of the Church by 
confirmation performed by the pastor, after thorough instruc- 
tion in the Catechism. But especially in sacred song has 
the Lutheran Church a grand distinctive element of her 
worship. "The Lutheran Church," says Dr. Schaff, "draws 
the fine arts into the service of religion, and has produced 
a body of hymns and chorals, which, in richness, power, 
and unction, surpasses the hymnology of all other churches 
in the world." "In divine worship," says Goebel, "we reach 
a point in which the Lutheran Church has one of its most 
glorious features of pre-eminence. The hymns of the Church 
are the people's confession, and have wrought more than the 
preaching. In the Lutheran Church alone, German hymn- 
ology attained a bloom truly amazing. The words of holy 
song were heard everywhere, and sometimes, as with a single 
stroke, won whole cities for the Gospel." 

What has been the practical working of the Lutheran sys- 
tem in the life of the Church ? This question is an extensive 
one, and we offer but a fact or two bearing on the answer to 
it. In the Lutheran system the word of God works from 
„ .. , , within to the outward. The Romanic nations are 

Practical work- 
ing of Lutheran- characteristically less contemplative and more radi- 
cal and inclined to extremes than the Germanic, 
and the Swiss Reformation had a large mingling of political 
elements. The Lutheran type of Reformation and of religion 
is consequently milder and less demonstrative, less obtrusive 
and more averse to display, than the Zwinglian and Calvin- 
istic; but the piety it matures is unequalled in firmness, 
calmness, earnestness, joyousness, and freedom. The character 
of Luther himself, is largely mirrored in the Church which 



WORKING OF LUTHERANISM IN THE LIFE. 155 

cherishes his memory as one of her most precious possessions. 
The Lutheran Church is very rich in devotional works for the 
people. It is more in affinity with high aesthetic culture than 
other Protestant Churches. It is less open than others to 
excessive tendencies to voluntary (especially to secret) associa- 
tion not under the control of the Church. It may be claimed 
for it that it is the most healthfully cautious of Churches, and, 
therefore, most sure to make the most permanent, if not the 
most rapid progress. Gcebel, a Reformed writer, says : " That 
charming, frank good-humor, and that beneficence which rise 
from the very depth of the soul, and which so advantageously 
distinguish the German nation from others, are wanting among 
the Reformed — even among the Germans of the Reformed 
Church. The piety of the Lutherans is deep, fervent, heart- 
felt." And a far greater theological scholar, (Dr. SchafF,) also 
of another communion, has said : " The Lutheran piety has 
also its peculiar charm — the charm of Mary, who sat at Jesus' 
feet and heard his word. ... It excels in honesty, kindness, 
affection, cheerfulness, and that gemtithlichkeit for which 
other nations have not even a name. The Lutheran Church 
meditated over the deepest mysteries of divine grace, and 
brought to light many treasures of knowledge from the mines 
of revelation. She can point to an unbroken succession of 
learned divines who devoted their whole lives to the investi- 
gation of saving truth. She numbers her mystics who bathed 
in the ocean of infinite love. She has sung the most fervent 
hymns to the Saviour, and holds sweet, child-like intercourse 
with the Heavenly Father." 

A fair construction of the whole history of the past will 
inspire faith in the character of the people whom God has 
given to our Church to be gathered under her banners and to 
fight her battles. Not all the havoc which state-meddling, 
war, and infidelity have made with the true German character 
in Europe can efface the evidence of the past and the present, 
that of all nations the German is the most simply and pro- 
foundly religious, that the Germans are what Dr. Arnold calls 
them : " the regenerating race — the most moral race of men," 



156 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

and a large part of this glory is due to that Church which so 
faithfully exhibits and nurtures the genuine Germanic life. 

And not unworthy of a place with this noble element is the 
other great family of Lutheran nations, which next to the Ger- 
mans, are adding to the greatest treasure of this New World, 
thousands of Christian men. The name of Scandinavians recalls 
great Lutheran nationalities which have deserved well of the 
The scandina- world. With it is connected the name of Gustavus 
vian Lutherans, Yasa, King of Sweden, who pleaded for the Re- 
formation with tears, who laid down his sceptre 
and refused to take it again until the love of his people for 
him made them willing to receive the Reformation, and who 
founded, among the poor Laplanders, one of the first Protest- 
ant Missions. It recalls the name of the martyr-hero, Gus- 
tavus Adolphus, whose name should be dearer to Protestants, 
and most of all to Lutherans, who justly claim to be the most 
Protestant of Protestants, dearer than the name of Washing- 
ton to Americans, for a part of the price he paid for the rescue 
of the religious liberty of Europe was his own blood. But for 
him, our Protestantism might have been borne down, and swept 
away from the world in a torrent of blood and fire. He, too, 
was zealous in the cause of missions. It was a Scandinavian 
king, Frederick IV. of Denmark, who established at Tranque- 
bar, the East India Mission, which was blest with the labors 
of Ziegenbalg, and of the greatest of missionaries of all time, 
Christian Frederic Schwartz. It was a Scandinavian Lutheran 
preacher, Hans Egede, of Norway, who, amid toil, peril, and 
suffering, planted a pure Christianity among the Greenlanders. 
" In the eighteenth century," says Wiggers, " Denmark shone 
in the eyes of Evangelical Europe as a fireside and home of 
missions." "In Sweden," says the same distinguished writer, 
" the Lutheran Church won a noble and pure people, full of a 
vigorous and steadfast faith, a people marked by clearness and 
brightness of intellect, by pure and simple morals, and the soul 
of chivalry ; a people always ready fearlessly to wage warfare 
for the Gospel with the sword of the spirit, and if necessity 
urged, with the temporal sword. United with the state by 



THE SCANDINAVIAN LUTHERANS. 157 

the most intimate ties, not of bondage, but of mutual love, 
entering thoroughly into every part of the national life, exer- 
cising through its control of the schools the mightiest and 
holiest influence in the training of the young, with a ministry 
whose fidelity and wisdom accomplish the more, because they 
are sustained by high temporal position and adequate support, 
with a people who exhibit a calm and pious humility, and an 
unlimited confidence in their pastors, the Church of Sweden 
shines, like a star with its pure mild light, in the northern sky." 

For the Anglicized and English portion of oar Church, 
which best represents it, we claim a character in consonance 
with its great antecedents — a character of simplicity, earnest- 
ness, devoutness. In the departments of business, the calm of 
home, the sacred duties of the Church, the sphere of citizens, 
they show a solid worth, which testifies to the thoroughness 
of the Christian nurture of the communion they love. 

Of what our Church is, and of what she brings to this, her 
new home, witness has been borne by more than one thought- 
ful man of other communions. But among them all, there is 
none of more value than that given by Dr. John W. Nevin, of 
the Reformed Church. ~No amount of divergence from Dr. 
Kevin's views, could prevent a man of candor from acknowl- 
edging in him the presence of a great intellect, of the most 
unpretending simplicity and modesty, and of the most 
uncompromising love of truth. Our country has few men 
who can be classified with him. In originality and general 
vigor of conception and of style, Bushnell and Parks would 
be thought of as most like him ; but we do not think that on 
any just estimate of the men, they could be claimed as his 
superiors. Dr. Kevin's range of thought is at once broader 
and deeper than that of most of our theological thinkers. It 
is comprehensive without becoming shallow. For the Lutheran 
Church in its genuine life he expresses great affection and 
reverence, and his witness is of peculiar value, for no man out 
of our Church knows more fully than he what is in it. He 
says, in speaking of the cultivation of an historical spirit in 
his own Church : " But this cannot fail to bring with it, at 
the same time, the power of understanding and appreciating 



158 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

also the vast historical significance which belongs to the other 
great Protestant Confession, the Lutheran Church. In recog- 
nizing our identity with the Reformed Confession in general, 
while we yet discard the peculiarity of our position in it as a 
German Reformed Church, we come necessarily into the feel- 
ing of what Lutheranism is for the church at large, in a way 
that is not by any means so easy for the thinking of other 
branches of the Reformed Communion in this country. In 
understanding ourselves and in learning to do justice to our 
own historical character, we are made conscious not simply of 
our difference from the Lutheran Church, but also of our old 
nearness to it, and of what we owe to it for our universal church 
life. The power of estimating intelligently the merits of the 
value of theLu- Heidelberg Catechism, must prove for us the power 
theran church to f honoring also the Augsburg Confession, as it 

Christianity at ^ . 

huge. Dr." j. w. was honored in the beginning by the framers of 
the Catechism. We can have no sympathy with 
that type of Reformed thought, whether in New England or 
elsewhere, which has fallen away entirely from the original 
Spannung of the two great Protestant Confessions ; which has 
lost all sense for the old theological issues, that threw them 
asunder in the sixteenth century ; and for which Lutheranism, 
in the profound distinction which then belonged to it, has 
become an unmeaning memory of the dead past. We are in 
the way more and more, it may be hoped, of knowing better 
than this. We can have no wish to have the Lutheran Church 
overwhelmed in this country by the reigning unhistorical spirit 
of our American Christianity — no wish to see it Americanized, 
in the sense of anything like a general rupture with its original 
theological life. The whole Reformed Church here, whether 
it be perceived or not, has a vast interest at stake on the power 
of the Lutheran Church to remain true and faithful to her con- 
fessional mission. For all who are capable of appreciating at 
all the central and vital character of the questions that shook 
the Protestant world in the age of the Reformation, and who 
are able to make proper account of the unsacramental tenden- 
cies of the present time, it must be a matter for congratulation 
that German Lutheranism has grown to be so numerically 



THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA. 159 

powerful within our borders, and that it is coming to be in 
every way so vast an ecclesiastical power in the land ; while it 
ought to be the prayer of all, that this power may be so exer- 
cised more and more as to be a principle of wholesome redemp- 
tion and preservation for the universal Protestantism of the 
nation." 

That such a Church has a mission of extraordinary import- 
ance in this land in which exist such dangerous tendencies to 
sectarianism and radicalism, and whose greatest 

° Mission of the 

need is the cultivation of historical feeling, under Lutheran church 
the restraint of a wholesome conservatism, requires 
no argument. The Lutheran Church daily becomes better 
known through the translations of her literature, though 
most of them are very bad ones ; but her work of good cannot 
be consummated till she renders her genius and life themselves 
into the idiom of the new nationality into which she is here 
passing. Protestant to the very heart, yet thoroughly histori- 
cal, happy in her liberty of adaptation in things indifferent, 
while she is fast anchored in the great doctrine of justification 
by faith and the doctrines which cluster around it, popular in 
her principles of church government, which, without running 
into Independency, accord such large powers to the congrega- 
tion, principles free from the harshness of some systems, the 
hierarchical, aristocratic, autocratic tendencies of others, the 
fanaticism aud looseness of others, possessing liturgical life 
without liturgical bondage, great in a history in which all 
mankind are interested, her children believe that she bears 
special treasures of good to bless the land of her adoption. 

Immovable in her faith and the life it generates, our Church, 
the more heartily and intelligently, on this very account, ac- 
cepts the great fact that God has established her in this west- 
ern world under circumstances greatly different from those in 
which her past life has been nurtured. New forms of duty, 
new types of thought, new necessities of adaptation, are here 
to tax all her strength, and to test how far she is able to main- 
tain her vital power under necessary changes of form. The 
Lutheranism of this country cannot be a mere feeble echo of 
any nationalized species of Lutheranism. It cannot, in the 



160 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

national sense, be permanently German or Scandinavian, out 
of Germany and Scandinavia, but in America must be Ameri- 
can. It must be conformed in accordance with its own princi- 
ples to its new home, bringing hither its priceless experiences 
in the old world, to apply them to the living present in the 
new. Our Church must be pervaded by sympathy for this 
land ; she must learn in order that she may teach. She must 
not be afraid to trust herself on this wild current of the quick 
life of America. She must not cloister herself, but show in 
her freedom, and in her wise use of the opportunity of the 
present, that she knows how robust is her spiritual life, and 
how secure are her principles however novel or trying the tests 
to which they are subjected. 

The catholicity of the range of our Church among nations, 
in which she is entirely without parallel among Protestant 
Churches, does, indeed, make the problem of the fusion of her 
elements very difficult ; but it is the very same problem which 
our nation has had to solve. In spite of all the difficulties of 
inflowing nationalities, we consider their presence in our coun- 
try as politically a source of strength, even though a collision 
of them has sometimes brought about riot and murder. The 
Lutheran Church, if she can solve her problem, will be repaid 
by a result richly worth all her toil and endurance. 

Though the descendants of Lutherans have often been lost 
to the Lutheran Church, she, on the other hand, embraces 
in her membership thousands not of Lutheran origin ; and 
though in the nature of the case these gains, are far from 
counterbalancing her losses, they show that the losses have 
not resulted from want of adaptation to the genius of our 
time and of our land. The Lutheran Church, where she is 
understood, has proved herself a popular Church, a true church 
of the people. 

She has a wonderful power of adaptation, and of persist- 
ence, and of recuperation. Her tendency to unite is so great, 
that although there have been difficulties which, in churches 
of a separatistic character, would have originated a dozen of 
sects, the Lutheran Church in this country still retains her 
denominational unity. Many of the difficulties of our Church 



FUTURE OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH 161 

were, in their own nature, inevitable. So extraordinary have 
the}^ been, that nothing but a vitality of the most positive 
kind could have saved her. A calm review of her history in 
this country up to this hour, impresses us with a deeper 
conviction that she is a daughter of God, and destined to do 
much for his glory in this western world. Let her be faith- 
ful to her faith, in the confession of the lip, the love of the 
heart, the devotion of the life ; let her soul invest itself with 
the body of a sound government ; let her ministers and people 
be knit to her, and to one another, with the love which such a 
church should command from her children, and should infuse 
into them, one to another, and God helping her, the glory of 
her second temple shall not be unworthy of the great memories 
of the first. 

The signs of the times must be lost on our people if they 
are not waked, up to a more just appreciation of their Church. 
And though not known by others as she should be, she is 
better known and wins increasing respect. The Future of 
importance of the aid she brings in evangelizing the Lutheran 
this western world is more deeply felt, and before 
the eyes of those even who would not see her when she sat 
mourning in the dust, she rises more brightly and beautifully, 
an acknowledged power in the land. Our parent tree may 
shed its foliage, to renew it, or its blossoms may fall off to 
give way to fruit, parasitic creepers may be torn from it, 
storms may carry away a dead branch here and there — but 
there is not strength enough in hell and earth combined to 
break its massive trunk. Till the new earth comes, that 
grand old tree, undecaying, will strike its roots deeper in the 
earth that now is : till the new heavens arch themselves, it 
will lift itself under these skies, and wave, in tempest and 

sunshine its glorious boughs. 
11 



V. 



THE CONFESSIONAL PRINCIPLE OF THE CONSERV- 
ATIVE REFORMATION* 



IN" the statement of fundamental and unchangeable principles 
of Faith, which the General Council of the Evangelical 
Lutheran Church in America lays as the basis of its Consti- 
tution, it is declared : 

I. There must be and abide through all time, one holy Chris- 
tian Church, which is the assembly of all believers, among 
whom the Gospel is purely preached, and the Holy Sacraments 
are administered, as the Gospel demands. 

To the true unity of the Church, it is sufficient that there 
be agreement touching the doctrine of the Gospel, that it be 
preached in one accord, in its pure sense, and that the Sacra- 
ments be administered conformably to God's word. 

* Blackburne : The Confessional: Inquiry into the right, etc., of Confessions 
of Faith, etc. Lond. 1770. 

Busching: tJb. d. Symbol. Schriften d. Evang. Luther. Kirche. Hamb. 1771. 
" Wenn und durch wen die Symbol. Schr. ausgel. werd. Berl. 1789. 

Eberhard: 1st die Augsb. Confess. eineGlaubensvorschr., etc. 1795-97. 

Heusinger: Wurdigung der S. B. n. d. jetz. Zeitbediirf. Leipz. 1799. 

Fritzsche: Uber. d. unverand. Gelt, der Aug. Confess. Leipz. 1830. 

Martens : Die Symb. Buch. der Ev. Luth. Kirche. Halberst. 1830. 

Johannsen: Untersuch.derRechtmassigk. d.Verpfl. a. S. B. Altona. 1833. 

Hofling : De Symbolor. natur. necessit. auctor. atque usu. Erl. 1835. 

Bretschneider: Die Unzul'assigk. d. Symbolzwanges. Leipz. 1841. 

Sartorius: Nothwendigk. u. Verbindlichk. d. Kirch. Glaubensbekenntn. 
Stuttgart. 1845. (See Review by Dr. J. A. Seiss : Evang. Rev. July, 1852.) 

Kollner : Die gute Sache d. Luth. Symbole. Gottingen. 1847. 

162 



FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF FAITH. 163 

II. The true unity of a particular Church, in virtue of 
which men are truly members of one and the same Church, 
and by which any Church abides in real identity, Fundamental 
and is entitled to a continuation of her name, principles of faith, 
is unity in doctrine and faith in the Sacraments, to wit : 
That she continues to teach and to set forth, and that her true 
members embrace from the heart, and use, the articles of faith 
and the Sacraments as they were held and administered when 
the Church came into distinctive being and received a distinc- 
tive name. 

III. The Unity of the Church is witnessed to, and made 
manifest in, the solemn, public, and official Confessions which 
are set forth, to wit: The generic Unity of the Christian 
Church in the general Creeds, and the specific Unity of pure 
parts of the Christian Church in their specific Creeds ; one 
chief object of both classes of which Creeds is, that Christians 
who are in the Unity of faith, may know each other as such, 
and may have a visible bond of fellowship. 

IY. That Confessions may be such a testimony of Unity 
and bond of Union, they must be accepted in every statement 
of doctrine, in their own true, native, original and only sense. 
Those who set them forth and subscribe them, must not only 
agree to use the same words, but must use and understand 
those words in one and the same sense. 

V. The Unity of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, as a 
portion of the holy Christian Church, depends upon her abiding 
in one and the same faith, in confessing w^hich she obtained 
her distinctive being and name, her political recognition, and 
her history. 

YI. The Unaltered Augsburg Confession is by pre-eminence 
the Confession of that faith. The acceptance of its doctrines 
and the avowal of them without equivocation or mental reser- 
vation, make, mark, and identify that Church, which alone in 
the true, original, historical, and honest sense of the term is 
the Evangelical Lutheran Church. 

VII. The only Churches, therefore, of any land, wdiich are 
properly in the Unity of that Communion, and by consequence 
entitled to its name, Evangelical Lutheran, are those which 



164 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

sincerely hold and truthfully confess the doctrines of the Un- 
altered Augsburg Confession. 

VIII. We accept and acknowledge the doctrines of the Un- 
altered Augsburg Confession in its original sense as through- 
out in conformity with the pure truth of which God's Word 
is the only rule. We accept its statements of truth as in per- 
fect accordance with the Canonical Scriptures : We reject the 
errors it condemns, and we believe that all which it commits 
to the liberty of the Church, of right belongs to that liberty. 

IX. In thus formally accepting and acknowledging the Un- 
altered Augsburg Confession, we declare our conviction, that 
the other Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, 
inasmuch as they set forth none other than its system of doc- 
trine, and articles of faith, are of necessity pure and scriptural. 
Pre-eminent among such accordant, pure, and scriptural state- 
ments of doctrine, by their intrinsic excellence, by the great 
and necessary ends for which they were prepared, by their his- 
torical position, and by the general judgment of the Church, 
are these : The Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the 
Smalcald Articles, the Catechisms of Luther, and the Formula 
of Concord, all of which are, with the Unaltered Augsburg 
Confession, in the perfect harmony of one and the same scrip- 
tural faith. 

In accordance with these principles every Professor elect of 
the Theological Seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church 
at Philadelphia, in the act of investiture and before entering on 
the performance of the duties of his office, makes the following 
affirmation : 

' I believe that the Canonical Books of the Old and New 
Testaments are given by inspiration of God, and are the per- 
fect and only Pule of Eaith ; and I believe that the three Gen- 
eral Creeds, the Apostles', the Mcene, and the Athanasian, 
exhibit the faith of the Church universal, in accordance with 
this Pule. 

' I believe that the Unaltered Augsburg Confession is, in all 
its parts, in harmony with the Pule of Faith, and is a correct 
exhibition of doctrine ; and I believe that the Apology, the 
two Catechisms of Luther, the Smalcald Articles, and the 



THE RULE OF FAITH. 1G<3 

Formula of Concord, are a faithful development and defence 
of the doctrines of the Word of God, and the Augshurg Con- 
fession. 

'I solemnly promise before Almighty God that all my teach- 
ings shall be in conformity with His Word, and with the afore- 
mentioned Confessions.' 

The thetical statements of the Council and the declaration 
which follows, exhibit, as we believe, the relation of the Rule 
of Faith and the Confessions, in accordance with the principles 
of the Conservative Reformation. Accepting those principles, 
we stand upon the everlasting foundation — the Word of God : 
believing that the Canonical Books of the Old and New Tes- 
tament are in their original tongues, and in a pure text, the 
perfect and only rule of faith. All these books are in harmony, 
each with itself, and all with each other, and yield to the 
honest searcher, under the ordinary guidance of the Holy 
Spirit, a clear statement of doctrine, and produce a firm assur- 
ance of faith. Not any word of man, no creed, commentary, 
theological system, nor decision of Fathers or of councils, no 
doctrine of Churches, or of the whole Church, no results or 
judgments of reason, however strong, matured, and well 
informed, no one of these, and not all of these T he Rule of 
together, but God's word alone is the rule of faith. Faith - 
No apocryphal books, but the canonical books alone, are the 
rule of faith. No translations, as such, but the original 
Hebrew and Chaldee of the Old Testament, and the Greek of 
the New, are the letter of the rule of faith. No vitiation of 
the designing, nor error of the careless, but the incorrupt text 
as it came from the hands of the men of God, who wrote 
under the motions of the Holy Spirit, is the rule of faith. To 
this rule of faith we are to bring our minds ; by this rule we 
are humbly to try to form our faith, and in accordance w r ith 
it, God helping us, to teach others — teaching them the evi- 
dences of its inspiration, the true mode of its interpretation, 
the ground of its authority, and the mode of settling its text. 
The student of theology is to be taught the Biblical languages, 
to make him an independent investigator of the word of the 
Holy Spirit, as the organ through which that Spirit reveals 



106 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

His mind. First of all, as the greatest of all, as the ground- 
work of all, as the end of all else, we are to teach God's pure 
word, its faith for faith, its life for life ; in its integrity, in its 
marvellous adaptation, in its divine, its justifying, its sancti- 
fying, and glorifying power. We are to lay, as that without 
which all else would be laid in vain, the foundation of the 
Apostles and Prophets — Jesus Christ himself being the chief 
corner-stone. 

Standing really upon the everlasting foundation of this Rule 
of Faith, we stand of necessity on the faith, of which it is the 
rule. It is not the truth as it lies, silent and unread, in the 
Word, but the truth as it enters from that Word into the 
human heart, with the applying presence of the Holy Ghost, 
which makes men believers. Faith makes men Christians ; 
confession of but Confession alone marks them as Christians. 
Faith. The Rule of Faith is God's voice to us ; faith is 

the hearing of that voice, and the Confession, our reply of 
assent to it. By our faith, we are known to the Lord as his ; 
by our Confession, we are known to each other as His chil- 
dren. Confession of faith, in some form, is imperative. To 
confess Christ, is to confess what is our faith in him. As the 
Creed is not, and cannot be the Eule of Faith, but is its Con- 
fession merely, so the Bible, because it is the Rule of Faith, is 
of necessity not its Confession. The Bible can no more be any 
man's Creed, than the stars can be any man's astronomy. The 
stars furnish the rule of the astronomer's faith : the Principia 
of ISTewton may be the Confession of his faith. If a man 
were examined as a candidate for the chair of astronomy in a 
university, and were asked, " What is your astronomical sys- 
tem ? " and were to answer, " I accept the teaching of the 
stars," the reply would be, "You may think you do — so does 
the man who is sure that the stars move round the world, and 
that they are not orbs, but ' gimlet-holes to let the glory 
through.' We wish to know what you hold the teachings of 
the stars to be? Do you receive, as in harmony with them, 
the results reached by Copernicus, by Galileo, by Kepler, by 
Newton, La Place, and Herschel, or do you think the world 
one great flat, and the sun and moon mere pendants to it ? " 



WHAT SHALL BE OUR CONFESSION? 167 

" Gentlemen," replies the independent investigator, " the 
theories of those astronomers are human systems — man-made 
theories. I go out every night on the hills, and look at the 
stars, as God made them, through a hole in my blanket, with 
my own good eyes, not with a man-made telescope, or fettered 
by a man-made theory ; and I believe in the stars and in what 
they teach me : but if I were to say, or write what they teach, 
that would be a human creed — and I am opposed to all 
creeds." " Yery well," reply the examiners, " we wish you 
joy in the possession of a good pair of eyes, and feel it unne- 
cessary to go any further. If you are unwilling to confess 
your faith, we will not tax your conscience with the inconsist- 
ency of teaching that faith, nor tax our own with the hazard 
of authorizing you to set forth in the name of the stars your 
own ignorant assumptions about them." 

What is more clear than that, as the Rule of Faith is first, 
it must, by necessity of its being, when rightly used, generate 
a true faith ? But the man who has true faith desires to have 
it known, and is bound to confess his faith. The Rule cannot 
really generate two conflicting beliefs ; yet men who alike pro- 
fess to accept the Rule, do have conflicting beliefs ; and when 
beliefs conflict, if the one is formed by the Rule, the other 
must be formed in the face of it. Fidelity to the Rule of 
Faith, therefore, fidelity to the faith it teaches, demands that 
there shall be a Confession of the faith. The firmest friend of 
the Word is the firmest friend of the Creed. First, the Rule 
of Faith, next the Faith of the Rule, and then the Confession 
of Faith. 

What shall be our Confession? Are we originating a 
Church, and must we utter our testimony to a world, in which 
our faith is a novelty ? The reply is easy. As we What Bhall be 
are not the first who have used, with honest hearts our confession ? 
and fervent prayers, the Rule, so are we not the first who have 
been guided by the Holy Ghost in it to its faith. As men long 
ago reached its faith, so long ago they confessed it. They con- 
fessed it from the beginning. The first adult baptism was 
based upon a " human creed," that is, upon a confession of 
faith, which was the utterance of a belief which was based 



168 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION 

upon a human interpretation of divine words. The faith has 
been confessed from the beginning. It has been embodied in a 
creed, the origin of whose present shape no man knows, which 
indeed cannot be fixed ; for it rose from the words of our 
Saviour's Baptismal Commission, and was not manufactured, 
but grew. Of the Apostles' Creed, as of Him to whom its heart 
is given, it may be affirmed that it was " begotten, not made." 
The Confession has been renewed and enlarged to meet new 
and widening error. The ripest, and purest, and most widely 
used of the old Confessions have been adopted by our Church 
as her own, not because they are old and widely received, but 
because they are true. She has added her testimony as it was 
needed. Here is the body of her Confession. Is her Confes- 
sion ours ? If it be, we are of her in heart ; if it be not, we are 
only of her in name. It is ours — ours in our deepest convic- 
tion, reached through conflicts outward and inward, reached upon 
our knees, and traced with our tears — ours in our inmost hearts. 
Therefore, we consecrate ourselves to living, teaching, and de- 
fending the faith of God's word, which is the confessed faith of 
the Evangelical Lutheran Church. Fidelity to the whole truth 
of God's word requires this. We dare not be satisfied simply 
with recognition as Christians over against the Jew, because 
we confess that the Rule of Faith, of which the !New Testa- 
ment is a part, has taught us faith in Jesus Christ : we dare 
not be satisfied simply with recognition as holding the Catholic 
Faith as embodied in the three General Creeds, over against here- 
sies of various forms and shades. Christian believers holding 
the faith Catholic we are — but we are, besides, Protestant, 
rejecting the authority of the Papacy ; Evangelical, glorying 
Distinctive con- in the grace of the Gospel ; and Lutheran, holding 
fession necessary. ^ doctrines of fl^ Church, of which the Re- 
formation is the child — not only those in which all Christen- 
dom or a large part of it coincides with her, but the most dis- 
tinctive of her distinctive doctrines, though in the maintenance 
of them she stood alone. As the acceptance of the Word of 
God as a Rule of Faith separates us from the Mohammedan, 
as the reception of the ISTew Testament sunders us from the 
Jew, as the hearty acquiescence in the Apostles', Mcene, and 



FIDELITY TO THE CONFESSIONS. 169 

Athanasian Creeds shows us, in the face of all errorists of the 
earlier ages, to te in the faith of the Church Catholic, so does 
our unreserved acceptance of the Augsburg Confession mark 
us as Lutherans ; and the acceptance of the Apology, the 
Catechisms of Luther, the Schmalcald Articles, and the Formula 
of Concord, continues the work of marking our separation 
from all errorists of every shade whose doctrines are in con- 
flict with the true sense of the Rule of Faith — that Rule 
whose teachings are rightly interpreted and faithfully embo- 
died in the Confessions afore-mentioned. Therefore, God help- 
ing us, we will teach the whole faith of His word, which faith 
our Church sets forth, explains, and defends in her Symbols. 
We do not interpret God's word by the Creed, neither do we 
interpret the Creed by God's word, but interpreting both inde- 
pendently, by the laws of language, and finding that they 
teach, one and the same truth, we heartily acknowledge the 
Confession as a true exhibition of the faith of the Rule — - a 
true witness to the one, pure, and unchanging faith of the 
Christian Church, and freely make it our own Confession, as 
truly as if it had been now first uttered by our lips, or had 
now first gone forth from our hands. 

In freely and heartily accepting the faith of our Church, as 
our own faith, and her Scriptural Confession of that faith, as 
our own Confession, we do not surrender for our- Eidelity t0 the 
selves, any more than we take from others, the confessions not 

-, -,.,. ,, . , P ...-. inconsistent with 

sacred and inalienable right ot private judgment. the right of pri . 
It is not by giving up the right of private judg- vate judgment, 
ment, but by the prayerful exercise of it, not by relinquishing 
a just independence of investigation, but by thoroughly em- 
ploying it, that we have reached that faith which we glory in 
confessing. Could the day ever come, in which we imagined 
that the Evangelical Lutheran Church had abused her right 
of private judgment, so as to reach error, and not truth by it, 
we should, as honest men, cease to bear her name, or to con- 
nive at what we would, in the case supposed, believe to be 
error. On the other hand, should the Evangelical Lutheran 
Church ever have evidence, that we have abused our right of 
private judgment into the wrong of private misjudgment, so 



170 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

as to have reached error, and not truth by it, then, as a faithful 
Church, after due admonition, and opportunity for repentance 
have been given us in vain, she is bound to cast us forth, to 
purify her own communion, and to make it impossible for us, 
in her name, to injure others. As the individual, in exercising 
the right of private judgment, is in peril of abusing it, the 
Church has the right, and is bound by the duty, of self-defence 
against that abuse. The right of private judgment is not the 
right of Church-membership, not the right of public teach- 
ing, not the right of putting others into an equivocal attitude 
to what they regard as truth. A free Protestant Church is a 
Church, whose ministry and membership, accepting the same 
rule of faith, have, in the exercise of their private judgment 
upon it, reached the same results as to all truths which they 
deem it needful to unite in confessing. After all the intricacies 
into which the question of, "What are fundamentals ? has run, 
there can be no practical solution better than this, that they 
are such truths, as in the judgment of the Church, it is neces- 
sary clearly to confess ; truths, the toleration of the errors 
opposing which, she believes to be inconsistent with her fidelity 
to the Gospel doctrine, to her own internal harmony and high- 
est efficiency. The members and ministry of such a Church 
must have " one faith," as they have one Lord, one Baptism, 
and one God. Apart from the " unity of the faith," and the 
" unity of the knowledge of the Son of God," every striving to 
reach "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of 
the fulness of Christ," will be vain ; thus only can Christian 
men " henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and 
carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, 
and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive." 

A great deal is claimed under the right of private judg- 
ment, which is a most impudent infringement of that right. 
A man is a Socinian, a Pelagian, a Eomanist. Very well. We 
maintain, that no civil penalties should restrain him, and no 
ecclesiastical inquisition fetter him. Give him, in its fullest 
swing, the exercise of his right of private judgment. But 
your Socinian insists on such a recognition by Trinitarians 
as logically implies, that they either agree with him in his 



SUBSCRIPTION TO A CONFESSION. 171 

error, or that it is of no importance. What is this but to ask 
thousands or millions to give up or imperil the results of 
their well-used right of private judgment, at the call of one 
man, who abuses his ? Could impudence go further ? ' Go,' 
they may rightly say, ' with your right of private 

.. 1 , , , Use and abuse 

judgment, go where you belong, and cease to at- of t he right cf 
tempt the shallow jugglery, by which one man's private juds_ 
freedom means his autocracy, and every other man's 
slavery. If your right of private j udgment has made you an 
Atheist, don't call yourself a Believer ; if it has made you a 
Jew, don't pretend to be a Christian ; if it has made you a 
Papist, don't pretend to be a Protestant ; if it has made you a 
Friend, don't call yourself a Churchman.' 

When we confess, that, in the exercise of our right of pri- 
vate judgment, our Bible has made us Lutherans, we neither 
pretend to claim that other men shall be made Lutherans by 
force, nor that their private judgment shall, or will, of neces- 
sity, reach the results of ours. We only contend, that, if their 
private judgment of the Bible does not make them Lutherans, 
they shall not pretend that it does. We do not say, that any 
man shall believe that the Confession of our Church is Scrip- 
tural. We only contend, that he should neither say nor seem 
to say so, if he does not believe it. The subscrip- Mea ning of 
tion to a Confession is simply a just and easy mode subscription to a 
of testifying to those who have a right to ask it 
of us, that we are what we claim and profess to be. So to 
sign a Confession as to imply that we are what we are not, or 
to leave it an open question what we are, is not the just result 
of the right of private judgment, or of any right whatever, 
but is utterly wrong. For it is a first element of truth, with 
which no right, private or public, can conflict, that names 
shall honestly represent things. What immorality is more 
patent than the pretence that the right of private judgment 
is something which authorizes a man to make his whole life a 
falsehood ; is something which fills the world with names, 
which no longer represent things, fills it with black things, 
that are called white, with bitter things, that are called 
sweet, and with lies, that are called truths, with monarchists, 



172 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

who are called republicans, with Socinians, who are called 
Trinitarians, with Arminians, who are called Calvinists, with 
Romanists, Rationalists, fanatics, or sectarians, who are called 
Lutherans ? 

We concede to every man the absolute right of private 
judgment as to the faith of the Lutheran Church, but if he 
have abandoned the faith of that Church, he may not use her 
name as his shelter in attacking the thing she cherishes, and 
in maintaining which she obtained her being and her name. 
It is not enough that you say to me, that such a thing is 
clear to your private judgment. You must show to my pri- 
vate judgment, that God's word teaches it, before I dare recog- 
nize you as in the unity of the faith. If you cannot, we 
have not the same faith, and ought not to be of the same 
communion ; for the communion is properly one of persons of 
the same faith. In other words, your private judgment is not 
to be my interpreter, nor is mine to be yours. If you think 
me in error, I have no right to force myself on your fellow- 
ship. If I think you in error, you have no right to force 
yourself on mine. You have the civil right and the moral 
right to form your impressions in regard to truth, but there 
the right stops. You have not the right to enter or remain 
in any Christian communion, except as its terms of member- 
ship give you that right. So easy is this distinction, and so 
clearly a part, not of speculation, but of practical morals, that 
the law of the land recognizes it. If certain men, under the 
style and title of a Church, which imply that it is Calvinistic, 
call an Arminian preacher, the law takes that Church from 
an Arminian majority which calls itself Calvinistic, and gives 
it to a Calvinistic minority which is what it calls itself. Does 
this mean that the majority must sacrifice their right of pri- 
vate judgment, that the law wishes to force them to be Cal- 
vinists ? Not at all. It simply means, that the right of pri- 
vate judgment is not the right to call yourself what you are 
not, and to keep what does not belong to you. Put your 
Arminians under their true colors, though in minority, and 
your Calvinists under false colors, though in majority, and you 



THE ABUSE OF PRIVATE JUDGMENT. 173 

will soon see how easily the principle of this law of morals 
and of this law of the land adjusts itself. 

Before the plain distinctions we have urged, in regard to 
private judgment, go down all the evasions hy The abuge of 
which Rationalism has sought to defend itself from pnvate judgment 
the imputation of dishonor, when it pretended to strained by P er- 
bear the Lutheran name, as if Lutheranism were secutlon - 
not a positive and well-defined system of truth, but a mere 
assertion of the right of private judgment. It is the doctrine 
of the Reformation, not that there should be no checks upon 
the abuse of private judgment, but that those checks should 
be moral alone. The Romanists and un-Lutheran elements in 
the Reformation were agreed, that the truth must be main- 
tained and heresy extirpated by the sword of government. 
Error is in afiinity with the spirit of persecution. The first 
blood shed within the Christian Church, for opinion's sake, 
was shed hy the deniers of the divinity of Jesus Christ, the 
Arians. So strong was the feeling in the primitive Church 
against violence toward errorists, that not a solitary instance 
occurs of capital punishment for heresy in its earlier era. The 
Bishops of Gaul, who ordered the execution of the Priscillian- 
ists, though the lives of these errorists were as immoral as 
their teachings were abominable, were excluded from the com- 
munion of the Church. As the Western Church grew cor- 
rupt, it grew more and more a persecuting Church, till it 
became drunken with the blood of the saints. The maxims 
and spirit of persecution went over to every part of the 
Churches of the Reformation, except the Lutheran Church. 
Zwingle countenanced the penalty of death for heresy. What 
was the precise share of Calvin in the burning of Servetus is 
greatly mooted ; but two facts are indisputable. One is, that, 
before the unhappy errorist took his fatal journey, Calvin wrote, 
that, if Servetus came to Geneva, he should not leave it alive, 
if his authority availed anything ; the other is, that, after the 
burning of Servetus, Calvin wrote his dissertation defending 
the right of the magistrate to put heretics to death (1554.) 
The Romish and Calvinistic writers stand as one man for the 
right and duty of magistrates to punish heresy with death, 



174 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

over against Luther and the entire body of our theologians, 
who maintain, without an exception, that heresy is never to 
be punished with death. The Reformed portion of Protest- 
antism has put to death, at different times and in different 
ways, not only Romanists and Anabaptists, but its terrible 
energies have been turned into civil strife, and Episcopalians, 
Presbyterians, and Independents put each other to death, espe- 
cially in the great civil wars of England, whose origin was 
largely religious. Strange as it may sound, Socinians them- 
selves have been persecutors, and yet more strange is the ground 
on which they persecuted. The original Socinians not only ac- 
knowledged that Jesus Christ was to be worshipped, and char- 
acterized those who denied it as half Jews, but, when Francis 
David, one of the greatest of their original co-workers, denied it, 
the old man was cast into prison , and kept there till he died. The 
Lutheran Church alone, of all the great Churches that have 
had the power to persecute, has not upon her skirts one drop 
of blood shed for opinion's sake. The glorious words of Lu- 
ther were : " The pen, not the fire, is to put down heretics. 
The hangmen are not doctors of theology. This is not the 
., . . , . , place for force. Not the sword, but the word, fits 

But by denial *■ 1 7 

of church recog- for this battle. If the word does not put down 
error, error would stand, though the world were 
drenched with blood." By these just views, centuries in ad- 
vance of the prevalent views, the Lutheran Church has stood, 
and will stand forever. But she is none the less earnest in 
just modes of shielding herself and her children from the 
teachings of error, which takes cover under the pretence of pri- 
vate judgment. She would not burn Servetus, nor, for opinion's 
sake, touch a hair of his head; neither, however, would she 
permit him to bear her name, to " preach another Jesus " in 
her pulpits, to teach error in her Universities, or to approach 
with her children the table of their Lord, whom he denied. 
Her name, her confessions, her history, her very being protest 
against the supposition of such " fellowship with the works of 
darkness," such sympathy with heresy, such levity in regard 
to the faith. She never practised thus. She never can do it. 
Those who imagine that the right of private judgment is the 



DENIAL OF CHRISTIAN RECOGNITION. 175 

right of men, within the Lutheran Church, and bearing her 
hallowed name, to teach what they please in the face of her 
testimony, know not the nature of the right they claim, nor of 
the Church, whose very life involves her refusal to have fellow- 
ship with them in their error. It is not the right of private 
judgment which makes or marks a man Lutheran. A man 
may have the right to judge, and be a simpleton, as he may 
have the right to get rich, yet may remain a beggar. It is 
the judgment he reaches in exercising that right which deter- 
mines what he is. By his abuse of the " inalienable rights of 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," a man may make 
himself a miserable slave. The right of property belongs as 
much to the man who makes himself a beggar as to the man 
who has become a millionaire. Rights, in themselves, give 
nothing, and cannot change the nature of things. The right 
to gather, gathers nothing ; and if, under this right, the man 
gathers wood, hay, stubble, neither the right nor its exercise 
makes them into gold, silver, and precious stones. The Church 
will not put any violence upon him who chooses to gather what 
will not endure the fire ; but she will not accept them as jewels, 
nor permit her children to be cheated with them. The right 
of private judgment and the right of Church discipline are 
co-ordinate and harmonious rights, essential to the prevention, 
each of the abuse of the other. To uphold either intelligently, 
is to uphold both. In maintaining, therefore, as Protestants, 
the right and duty of men, in the exercise of private judgment, 
to form their own convictions, unfettered by civil penalties in 
the State, or by inquisitorial powers in the Church, we main- 
tain, also, the right and duty of the Church to shield herself 
from corruption in doctrine by setting forth the truth in her 
Confession, by faithfully controverting heresy, by personal 
warning to those that err, and, finally, with the contumacious, 
by rejecting them from her communion, till, through grace, 
they are led to see and renounce the falsehood, for which they 
claimed the name of truth. 

The faith of the Church, drawn from the rule by the just 
exercise of private judgment, illumined by the Holy Ghost, 
has been tested and developed in three ways : First, by science; 



176 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

next, by history ; and thirdly, in the practical life of the 
Church. Science has shown, in the glorious edifice of our 
doctrinal theology, that our faith has the grand 
deiityVtheCon- criterion of truth, the capacity of arrangement in 
fessions an essen- a self-harmonizing system. Order is Heaven's first 
oiogicai training, law. As the law of the physical universe is mathe- 
matical, the law of the spiritual universe is logical. 
That which has no place in system, is not of God, is not truth. 
All his works reflect his unity and self-consistency. 

To fit for their whole work, men, whom God shall call, 
through his Church, to teach the Gospel and administer the 
Sacraments, involves, in its most perfect form, that they shall 
understand, in its own tongues, the Holy Book, to the teachings 
of whose truths they are to devote themselves, that they 
should see those truths in their relations, as well as in their 
isolation, should thoroughly comprehend the faith of the 
Church, which is built upon them, and should be able to 
defend the truth, and the faith, which is its inspiration. The 
student of theology must be taught the history of the Church, 
in order to comprehend prophecy, in order to test all things, 
and hold fast to the good, and in order to comprehend the 
force and value of the dec sions, on disputed points, which the 
Church maintains over against all errorists. He must know 
the history of the past in order to live in the life of to-day, 
which is the outflowing of the life of yesterday, and in order 
to reach beyond the hour into that solemn to-morrow of the 
future, which is to be the outflowing of the life of to-day. For 
all these and for many other reasons, the student of theology 
must master the great facts in the history of the Church of all 
time ; but most of all, the history of our own Church, the 
richest, the most suggestive, the most heart-inspiring of the 
whole. 

Looking forward to the position of a Bishop in the Church, 
and of a Counsellor in the Synod, the student of theology 
needs to be master of the great principles of Church govern- 
ment, a sphere specially important to our Church amid the 
radicalism and anarchical tendencies of the hour. The Chris- 
tian Pastor of the future should be master of the principles 



MINISTERIAL EFFICIENCY. Ill 

which are to guide him in his vocation as guardian of the 
flock; the Preacher of the future should understand the theory, 
and be practically trained in the power of that simple but 
mighty eloquence, which becomes the preaching of the cross ; 
the Catechist of the future should be trained for the great work 
of feeding the lambs ; the future Ministrants at the altars of the 
Most High should be shaped in the tender, trusting, and all- 
prevailing spirit of worship, which God, the Holy Ghost, 
kindles in his saints, the devotion, whose flame trembles 
upward to its source, in the humble confessions, in the holy 
songs, and in the fervent prayers of the Church, all hallowed 
by the memories of ages of yearning and aspiration. If we 
are to have men " mighty in the Scriptures," " able and faith- 
ful ministers of the New Testament," they must be, " not 
novices," but men who " know how they ought to behave 
themselves in the house of God," " perfect, thoroughly fur- 
nished unto all good works," " holding fast the faithful word 
as they have been taught, that they may be able, by sound 
doctrine, both to exhort and to convince gainsayers," " in doc- 
trine showing incorruptness." 

In the true Christian minister, the priesthood, which he 
holds in common with all believers, intensifies „. . . . . f 

' Ministerial ef- 

itself by his representative character. He is a fluency depend- 
priest, whose lips keep knowledge, at whose mouth 
they should seek the law, for he is the " messenger of the 
Lord of hosts." "We want men apt to teach, in meekness 
instructing those that oppose themselves. We want men 
of decision, ready to confront those " whose mouths must be 
stopped ; who subvert whole houses, teaching things which 
they ought not, for filthy lucre's sake." "We want men, who 
will " hold fast the form of sound words ; who will take heed 
unto themselves and the doctrine, and continue in them, know- 
ing, that, in doing this," and alone in doing this, " they shall 
both save themselves and them that hear them ; " men, who 
shall "stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together 
for the faith of the gospel," " earnestly contending for the 
faith once delivered to the saints;" men, " like-minded one 
toward another, speaking the same thing, with no divisions 



178 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

among them, but perfectly joined together in the same mind 
and in the same judgment." 

But, with all, and in all, and above all, we wish to send 
forth men, who shall be living illustrations of the power of 
the gospel they preach ; men, who shall show the oneness and 
stability of a true faith, ready to yield preferences to secure 
principles, to make the sacrifices of love to the consciences of 
the weak in things indifferent, and to stand as the anvil to 
the beater under the strokes of obloquy and misrepresentation. 
We wish men, who will have the mind of Jesus Christ, thrill- 
ing in every pulse with love to souls ; men that will seek the 
lowliest of the lowly, men filled with the spirit of missions, 
men of self-renunciation ; men open as the day, men that 
abhor deceit, who use great plainness of speech, who speak the 
truth in love ; men who are first pure, then peaceable, " gentle 
to all men,'' not self-willed, not soon angry, yet in conflict 
with the " many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, rebuk- 
ing them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith ; " men 
so glowing with love of the gospel, so clear in their judgment as 
to its doctrines, so persuaded that life and death, heaven and 
hell, hang upon its pure proclamation, that they shall be ready 
to say: "Though we or an angel from heaven preach any 
other gospel unto you, let him be accursed," and again, in the 
very power of the apostle's iteration : " As I said before, so 
say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto 
you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." It is in 
the simple Biblical faith, in the incorrupt, profound, and self- 
harmonizing system of doctrine, in the historical caution and 
thoroughness, in the heart -felt piety, in the reverential spirit 
of worship, in the holy activity which reaches every want of 
the souls and bodies of men, in fidelity in the pulpit and pastoral 
life, in uncompromising maintenance of sound government, in 
all these, which belong to our Church, it is in these the men of 
the future should be shaped. We would have them grounded 
in a thorough knowledge, an ardent love, a practical exhibition 
of all that belongs to the true idea of the Evangelical Lutheran 
Church, of the Evangelical Lutheran Christian, and of the 
Evangelical Lutheran pastor. But to be worthy of the Church 



BFASONS FOB CONFESSIONAL BASIS. 179 

of Christian purity and of Christian freedom to which they 
belong, the Church of Luther and Melanchthon, of Arndt and 
Gerhard, of Spener and Francke, of Schwartz and Oberlin, of 
Muhlenberg and Harms, and of departed worthies, whose 
voices yet linger in our ears, they need a faith whose Confes- 
sion shall be as articulate, as its convictions are deep. 

This, then, is a summary of the result we reach : The basis 
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church is the Word of God, as 
the perfect and absolute Rule of Faith, and because this is her 
basis, she rests of necessity on the faith of which that Word is 
the Rule, and therefore on the Confessions which purely set 
forth that faith. She has the right rule, she reaches the right 
results by the rule, and rightly confesses them. This Confes- 
sion then is her immediate basis, her essential char- summary of 
acteristic, with which she stands or falls. The result - 
Unaltered Augsburg Confession and its Apology, the Cate- 
chisms and Schmalcald Articles, and the Formula of Concord, 
have been formally declared by an immense majority of the 
Lutheran Church as their Confession of Faith. The portion 
of the Church, with few and inconsiderable exceptions, which 
has not received them formally, has received them virtually. 
They are closely cohering and internally consistent statements 
and developments of one and the same system, so that a man 
who heartily and intelligently receives any one of the distinc- 
tively Lutheran Symbols, has no difficulty in accepting the 
doctrine of the whole. They fairly represent the Reasons for the 
faith of the Church, and simply and solely as so confessional Ba- 
representing it are they named in the statement of 
the basis of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The real 
question, then, is this : Ought the Church to rest unreservedly 
and unchangeably on this faith as her doctrinal basis ? To 
this question, which is but the first repeated in a new shape, 
we reply, as we replied to the first, She ought. 

I. She ought to rest on that basis, because that Faith of our 
Church, in all and each of its parts, is founded on 1#Iti8 founded 
the Word of God, which she will not permit to be on God ' 8 Word - 
overruled, either by the speculations of corrupt reason, or by 
the tradition of a corrupted Church, but which Word she 



180 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

interprets under the ordinary, promised guidance of the Holy 
Spirit, as a Word in itself absolutely perfect for its ends, giving 
law to reason, and excluding tradition as any part, direct or 
indirect, of the Rule of Faith. 

II. The proposition we have just advanced, no Lutheran, in 
the historical sense of the word, can deny ; for the man who 

2 it belong wou ^ deny it, would, in virtue of that denial, 
to historical Lu- prove that he is not in the historical sense Luther- 
an ; for he, and he only, is such who believes that 

the doctrine of the gospel is rightly taught in the Augsburg 
Confession. We do not enter into the question, whether, in 
some sense, or in what sense, a man who denies this may be 
some kind of a Lutheran. We only affirm that he is not such 
in the historical sense of the word ; that he is not what was 
meant by the name when it was first distinctively used — that 
is, not a Lutheran whom Luther, or the Lutheran Church for 
three centuries, would have recognized as such, nor such as 
the vast majority of the uncorrupted portions of our Church 
would now recognize. 

III. That many of the Articles of Faith set forth by our 
Church are pure and Scriptural, is acknowledged by all nominal 
Christendom ; that an immense proportion of them is such, is 
confessed by all nominal Protestants. Zwingle declared that 

3 commended there were no men on earth whose fellowship he so 
by other Com- desired as that of the Wittenbergers. Calvin sub- 
scribed the unaltered Augsburg Confession, and acted 

as a Lutheran minister under it. " E"or do I repudiate the Augs- 
burg Confession (which I long ago willingly and gladly sub- 
scribed) as its author has interpreted it." So wrote Calvin, in 
1557, to Schalling. Two mistakes are often made as to his 
meaning, in these much-quoted words. First : The Confession 
he subscribed was not the Yariata. Calvin subscribed at Stras- 
burg,inl539. The Yariata did not appear till 1540. Second: 
He does not mean nor say that he then subscribed it as its 
author had explained it. There was no word of its author then, 
which even seemed in conflict with its original sense. Calvin 
means : Nor do I now repudiate it, as its author has interpreted 
it. The great Reformed divines have acknowledged that it has 



4. Essential to 
union in funda- 
mentals. 



ESSENTIAL UNION IN FUNDAMENTALS. 181 

not a fundamental error in it. The only error they charge on 
it, they repeatedly declare to be non-fundamental. Testing all 
Churches by the concessions of their adversaries, there is not so 
safe and pure a Church in existence as our own. But not only 
in the Articles conceded by adversaries, but in those which are 
most strictly distinctive of our Church, and which have been 
the object of fiercest assault, is she pure and Scriptural, as, for 
example, in regard to the Person of Christ and the Sacraments. 

IV. To true unity of the Church, is required hearty and 
honest consent in the fundamental doctrine of the gospel, or, in 
other words, in the Articles of Faith. It may surprise some, 
that we qualify the word doctrine by the word "fun- 
damental;" for that word, in the history of the 
Church, has been so bandied about, so miserably 
perverted, so monopolized for certain ends, so twisted by arti- 
fices of interpretation, as if a man could use it to mean any- 
thing he pleased, and might fairly insist that its meaning could 
only be settled by reference to his own mental reservation at 
the time he used it, that at length men have grown afraid of 
it, have looked upon its use as a mark of lubricity, and have 
almost imagined that it conveyed an idea unknown to our 
Church in her purer clays. Nevertheless, it conveys a good old- 
fashioned Biblical and Lutheran idea — an idea set forth in the 
Confession of the Church, constantly presented by our old Theo- 
logians, and by no means dangerous when honestly and intelli- 
gently used. Thus the Apology says : " The Church retains 
the pure gospel, and, as,,Paul says, {1 Cor. iii. 12,) the founda- 
tion, (fundamentum,) that is, the true knowledge of Christ 
and faith. Although in this Church there are many who are 
weak, who ' build upon this foundation, wood, hay, stubble,' 
who, nevertheless, do not overthrow the foundation, they are 
still Christians."* 

It is utterly false that Evangelical Lutherans are sticklers 
for non-fundamentals, that they are intolerant toward those 
who err in regard to non-fundamentals ; on the contrary, no 
Church, apart from the fundamentals of the gospel in which 
her unity and very life are involved, is so mild, so mediating, 

* Apology, (Miiller,) p. 156. 



182 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

so thoroughly tolerant as our own. Over against the unity of 
Rome under a universal Head, the unity of High-Churchism 
under the rule of Bishops, the unities which turn upon like 
rites or usages as in themselves necessary, or which build up 
the mere subtleties of human speculation into articles of faith, 
over against these the Lutheran Church was the first to stand 
forth, declaring that the unity of the Church turns upon 
nothing that is of man. Where the one pure gospel of Christ 
is preached, where the one foundation of doctrine is laid, 
where the " one faith " is confessed, and the alone divine Sac- 
raments administered aright, there is the one Church ; this is 
her unity. As the Augsburg Confession * declares : " The 
Church, properly so called, hath her notes and marks, to wit: 
the pure and sound doctrine of the gospel, and the right use of 
the Sacraments. And, for the true unity of the Church, it is 
sufficient to agree upon the doctrine of the gospel, and the 
administration of the Sacraments." 

Our fathers clearly saw and sharply drew the distinction 
between God's foundation and man's superstructure, between 
the essential and the accidental, between faith and opinion, 
between religion and speculative theology, and, with all these 
distinctions before them, declared, that consent in the doctrine 
of the gospel and the right administration of the Sacraments 
is the only basis of the unity of the Church. This basis, the 
Lutheran Church has defined and rests on it, to abide*there, 
we trust, by God's grace, to the end of time. 

In this basis of unity is implied, first of all, that, in a really 
united Church, there shall be agreement as to what subjects 
of the gospel teaching are to be considered its doctrine, or 
articles of faith, or fundamentals, (for all these terms are here 
practically synonymous,) and not either mere matters of opin- 
ion, or of secondary importance. 

It is no evidence that two men or two parts of a Church are 
really in unity because they say a certain creed is right on fun- 
damentals, if it be not certain that they agree as to what sub- 
jects of the gospel teaching are fundamental. The Socinian and 
Trinitarian are in unity of faith, and could alike accept the 

* Art. VII. 



ESSENTIAL UNION IN FUNDAMENTALS. 183 

Augsburg Confession as their creed, if it be granted that the 
Trinity is no doctrine of the gospel, no article of faith, no fun- 
damental, but a mere nicety of theological speculation, or some 
thing, which the Scripture, if it sets it forth at all, sets forth 
in no vital relation to its essential truths. Before a Socinian 
and Trinitarian, therefore, can honestly test their unity by a 
formula, which declares that they agree in fundamentals, they 
must settle what are fundamentals. Otherwise the whole 
thing is a farce. Any formula of agreement on " funda- 
mentals," which leaves it an open question what are funda- 
mentals, is delusive and dishonest, and will ultimately breed 
dissension and tend to the destruction of the Church. We 
protest, therefore, alike against the basis which does not pro- 
pose the fundamental doctrine of the gospel as essential to 
unity, and the basis, which, professing to accept the gospel 
fundamentals as its constituent element, is, in any degree 
whatever, dubious, or evasive, as to what subjects of gospel- 
teaching are fundamental, or which, pretending to define them, 
throws among non-fundamentals what the Word of God and 
the judgment of His Church have fixed as Articles of Faith. 
On such a point there should be no evasion. Divine Truth is 
the end of the Church ; it is also her means. She lives for it, 
and she lives by it. What the Evangelical Lutheran Church 
regards as fundamental to gospel doctrine, that is, what her 
existence, her history, her Confessions declare or justly imply 
to be her articles of faith, these ought to be accepted as such 
by all honorable men, who bear her name. 

But it is sometimes said, by very good men, as a summary 
answer to the whole argument for Confessions of Faith, that 
the very words of Scripture are a better Creed, than any we 
can substitute for them ; better, not only, as of course they are, 
on the supposition that our words are incorrect, but better even 
if our words are correct ; for our best words are man's words, 
but its words are the words of the Holy Ghost. But this ar- 
gument, although it looks specious, is sophistical to the core. 
The very words of Scripture are not simply a better Rule of 
Faith than any that can be substituted for them, but they are 
the absolute and only Rule of Faith, for which nothing can 



184 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

be substituted. But the object of a Creed is not to find out 
what God teaches, (we go to the Bible for that,) but to show 
what we believe. Hence the moment I set forth even the very 
Fidelity to the words of the Bible as my Creed, the question is no 
confession not lon2;er wbat does tlie Holy Ghost mean by those 

inconsistent *-> * «/ 

with the su- words, but what do I mean by them. You ask 
of e the A RSe r of a Unitarian, What do you believe about Christ. 
Faith. He replies: " I believe that he is the Son of God." 

These are the very words of the Bible; but the point 
is not at all now, what do they mean in the Bible ? but what 
do they mean as a Unitarian creed ? In the Rule of Faith, 
they mean that Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trin- 
ity incarnate ; in the Unitarian Creed, they mean that there is 
no Trinity, and that our Lord is a mere man. All heretics, if 
you probe them with the very words of the Bible, admit that 
these words are the truth. The Universalists for example, 
concede, that the "wicked go away into everlasting punish- 
ment." Now I know that in the Bible, the Ride of Faith, these 
words mean, a punishment without end; and I know just as 
well, that these identical words as a Universalist creed, mean, 
no future punishment at all, or one that does end. Yet with 
the fallacy of which we speak, do men evade the argument, 
for a clear, well-defined, and unmistakable creed. 

The truth is that correct human explanations of Scripture doc- 
trine are Scripture doctrine, for they are simply the statement 
of the same truth in different words. These words are not in 
themselves as clear and as good as the Scripture terms, but as 
those who use them can absolutely fix the sense of their own 
phraseology by a direct and infallible testimony, the human 
words may more perfectly exclude heresy than the divine 
words do. The term " Trinity," for example, does not, in itself, 
as clearly and as well express the doctrine of Scripture as the 
terms of the Word of God do ; but it correctly and compen- 
diously states that doctrine, and the trifler who pretends to re- 
ceive the Bible, and yet rejects its doctrine of the Trinity, can- 
not pretend that he receives what the Church means by the 
word Trinity. While the Apostles lived the Word was both 
a rule of faith, and in a certain sense, a confession of it ; when 



FIDELITY TO THE CONFESSIONS. 185 

by direct inspiration a holy man utters certain words, they are 
to him both a rale of faith, and a confession of faith — they at 
once express both what he is to believe and what he does 
believe ; but when the Canon was complete, when its authors 
were gone, when the living teacher was no longer at hand to 
correct the errorist who distorted his word, the Church entered 
on her normal and abiding relation to the "Word and the Creed 
which is involved in these words : the Bible is the rule of faith, 
but not the confession of it ; the Creed is not the rule of faith, 
but is the confession of it. A Lutheran is a Christian whose 
rule of faith is the Bible, and whose creed is the Augsburg 
Confession. 

To what end then is the poor sophism constantly iterated, 
that the Confession is a " human explanation of divine doc- 
trine"? So is the faith of every man — all that he deduces 
from the Bible. There is no personal Christianity in the world 
which is not the result of a human explanation of the Bible 
as really as the Confession of our Church is. It is human be- 
cause it is in human minds, and human hearts, — it is not a 
source to which we can finally and absolutely appeal as we can 
to God's word. But in exact proportion as the word of God 
opened to the soul by the illumination of the Holy Spirit, is 
truly and correctly apprehended, just in that proportion is the 
" human explanation " coincident with the divine truth. I ex- 
plain God's truth, and if I explain it correctly, my explanation 
is God's truth, and to reject the one in unbelief, is to reject 
the other. " Our Father who art in heaven," is a human ex- 
planation by certain English scholars of certain words used 
by our Lord ; but they are correct explanations, and as such 
are as really divine as those sounds in Aramaic or Greek which 
fell from the lips of our Lord. The difference is this : His 
words are absolutely final ; they are themselves the source of 
truth, beyond which we cannot rise. Our English words are 
to be tested by his — and when we believe they truly represent 
his, we receive them as his. For the essence of the word is not 
its sound, but its sense. 

Our English translation of the Bible is a human explanation 
of a certain humanly transcribed, humanly printed text, the 



186 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

original ; which original alone, just as the sacred penman left it, 
is absolutely in every jot and tittle God's Word ; but just in 
proportion as our translation is based upon a pure text of the 
Hebrew and Greek, and correctly explains the meaning of such 
an original, it too, is God's Word. Our sermons are human 
explanations of God's Word, but so far as they explain it cor- 
rectly, they do set forth God's Word, and he who hears us, 
hears our Lord. Our Confession is a human explanation of 
God's Word, but so far as it correctly explains it, it sets forth 
God's Word. The man who regards it as a correct explana- 
tion, or as " a summary and just exhibition " of the doctrines 
of which it treats, is consistently a Lutheran. No oth^r man 
is. If any man can define Lutheran consistency in any better 
way, we should be glad to have him do it ; and if he thinks 
human explanations are something antagonistic to scriptural 
doctrine, we wish to know, if he be a clergyman or a Sunday- 
school teacher, or a father, why he spends so many Sundays 
in the year in setting forth his " human explanation " to 
his people or his class or his children, instead of teaching 
them Hebrew and Greek. If he says that he believes that the 
" human explanations " of the authorized version he reads, and 
of the sermons he preaches to his people, or the instructions he 
gives to his pupils or his children, are scriptural, because they 
agree with Scripture, we ask him to believe that his church in 
her faith, that the " human explanations" of her Confession 
(framed in earnest, prayerful study of the Holy Scriptures, and 
in the promised light of the Holy Spirit) are correct and scrip- 
tural, may have as much to justify her as he has in his con- 
fidence in his own sermons, or his own lessons. We do not 
claim that our Confessors were infallible. We do not say they 
could not fail. We only claim that they did not fail. 

Those who smile at the utterance of a devout Father of the 
Fidelity to the Church : ' I belie ve it, because it is impossible ' — 
confessions, not sm ii e because they do not understand him; yet 
there would seem to be no solution but that given 
in the absurdest sense of his words, for an objection sometimes 
made to a hearty acceptance of the Lutheran Confession — to 
wit, that such an acceptance is Romanizing. Yet there are 



FIDELITY TO THE CONFESSIONS. 187 

those who affect to believe that men who maintain the duty 
of an honorable consistency with the Confessions of our Church, 
are cherishing a Romish tendency. If this meant that the doc- 
trines of our Church really have this tendency, then it would be 
the duty of all sound Protestants to disavow those doctrines, 
and with them the name of the church with which they are 
inseparably connected. While men call themselves Lutherans, 
that fact will go further before the unthinking world in favor 
of the Lutheran Confessions, than all their protestations will 
go against them. If the Lutheran Church be a Romanizing 
Church, we ought neither to bear the stigma of her name, nor 
promote her work of mischief by giving her such aid as may 
be derived from our own. But if the charge meant that those 
stigmatized have this Romish tendency, because they are not 
true to the Confessions of our Church, the thing really implied 
is, that they are not Lutheran enough — in other words, that 
the danger of apostasy is connected, not with fidelity to 
the Confession, but with want of fidelity. If this were the 
point which it is meant to press, we would heartily agree with 
those who press it ; and we would help them with every energy, 
to detect and expose those who w r ould cloak their Romanism 
under a perversion of our Confession, as others defend their 
fanaticism and heresies, under the pretence that the Confession 
is in error. As genuine Lutheranism is most Biblical among 
systems which professedly ground themselves on the supreme 
authority of God's word ; as it is most evangelical among the 
systems that magnify our Saviour's grace, so is our Church at 
once most truly Catholic among all churches which acknowl- 
edge that the faith of God's people is one, and most truly Prot- 
estant among all bodies claiming to be Protestant. She is the 
mother of all true Protestantism. Her Confession at Augs- 
burg, is the first official statement of Scriptural doctrine and 
usage ever issued against Romish heresy and corruption. Her 
confessions are a wall of adamant against Romanism. The 
names of Luther and her heroes who are among the dead, still 
hold the first place among those of the opponents of Rome. 
The doctrines of our Church have proved themselves the most 
mighty of all doctrines in winning men from Rome, and 



188 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

strongest of all doctrines in fixing the hearts of men, as a bul- 
wark against all her efforts to regain the ground she had lost. 
The anathemas of the Council of Trent are almost all levelled 
at our Church ; her soldiers have poured forth their blood on 
the battle-field, and the spirits of her martyrs have taken 
flight from the scaffold and the stake, in preserving, amid 
Romish conspiracies and persecution, the truth she gave them. 
Without our Church, there would be, so far as human sight 
may pierce, no Protestantism on the face of the earth at this 
hour, and without her Confession she would have perished 
from among men. It cannot be that loyalty to the Protest- 
antism she made and saved, can demand treachery to that by 
which she made and saved it. It cannot be that fidelity to the 
truth which overthrew Romanism, can involve connivance 
with Romanism itself. 

But there are others who, acknowledging for themselves the 
force of all that can be urged for the Confessions, and not un- 
willing for themselves to adopt them, look with desponding 
eye on the facts which seem to them to show that there can 
be no large general acceptance in. this country, so unchurchly 
and unhistoric as it is, of these Confessions. Were we to grant 
the gloomiest supposition possible, that would not affect our 
duty. Suppose it were true, that the arguments for the pure 
doctrine of the Confessions seem to have little weight with men, 
shall we cease to urge them? After Nineteen Centuries of 
struggle, Christianity is in minority in the world. After the 
evidences of Christianity have been urged for some three cen- 
turies, there are many deists, more open and avowed even than 
at the Reformation. After centuries of argument for the 
Trinity, there are, perhaps, more Socinians than ever. After 
three centuries, in which the pure doctrine of justification has 
been urged, millions in the Romish Church and very many 
nominal Protestants reject it. With all the arguments for in- 
fant baptism, with the proofs urged so long and so ably for the 
validity of other modes of Baptism than immersion, how many 
millions of Baptists there are ! With the clear testimony of 
Scripture and History for the perpetual obligation of the two 
Sacraments, how many Friends there are (and their number is 



WIDE CREEDS. 189 

increasing in Great Britain,) who deny it altogether! How 
little headway a pure and consistent faith in the gospel makes, 
after so many centuries I But what have we to do with all 
this ? Our business is to hold and urge the truth in all its 
purity, whether men will hear, or whether they will forbear. 
Truth will, at length, reach its aim and do its work. The 
faithful defence of the most bitterly contested doctrines has, for 
centuries, helped to keep millions sound in the faith, and has 
reclaimed many that had wandered. This very time of ours 
has seen the revival of the faith of our Church from all the 
thraldom of rationalism. In the masses of the people, and 
among the greatest theologians of the age, intense faith has 
been reproduced in the very doctrines of the Confession, which 
find the greatest obstacles in the weakness of human nature 
or in the pride of the heart of man. 

But if we must have a Creed, it is sometimes urged, why 
have one less comprehensive than Christianity in its widest 
sense ? Why have a Creed which will exclude from a particular 
church, any man whom we acknowledge possibly to be a 
Christian ? Why exclude from the Church mili- 

J . Wide Creeds. 

tant, or from our part of it, the man we expect to 
meet in the glories of the Church triumphant ? Does not such 
a course set up a claim for the particular Church, as if it were 
the Church universal ? Does it not substitute a sectarian 
orthodoxy for a Christian one ? This theory, which logically 
runs into the assertion that no particular church should exclude 
from its communion any but those who, it is prepared to assert, 
will certainly be lost, is, if fairly put, hardly specious, and in 
the adroitness of the many ways in which it actually meets 
us is merely specious. It goes upon a body of false assump- 
tions. The Church is not merely designed, as this theory 
assumes, to bring into outward association, men who are to get 
to heaven, but its object is to shed upon the race every kind 
of blessing in the present life. The Church is bound to have 
regard in her whole work, and in her whole sphere, to her 
entire mission — even though it should require the exclusion 
of a man whose imbecility, ignorance, and erratic perverseness 
God may forgive, but which would ruin the Church. 



190 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

What is Christianity in its " widest " sense ? How " wide " 
must it be? Is Mohammedanism a corrupt Christianity? 
Is every Unitarian, every Pelagian, every Swedenborgi an, lost? 
Has a " wide" Christianity, Baptism, and the Lord's Supper? 
If it has, it excludes Elizabeth Fry, and Joseph John Gurney, 
because they were Friends. If it has not, it tramples on our 
Lord's commands. Can a particular Church which holds that 
Immersion is not a necessary mode, be the home of a man who 
teaches that it is ? As long as there is a man in the world who 
wishes to make Christianity " wider" than you do, you must 
yield, unless you feel sure that the man must be lost. What ! 
will you have your Church so narrow, that he who is to get to 
heaven shall not be of it ? Never, if you wish to be consistent. 
The moment you do it, you have your Church militant 
which excludes a part of the Church triumphant. 

But the theory assumes another great fallacy — which is, 
that there is some fixed standard of responsibility, some ascer- 
Faiiaciesofthe tamable minimum of what is necessary to salva- 
argument. tion, in the case of each man. But there is no such 

standard : the responsibility has a wide range, for it embraces, 
except in the extremest cases of ignorance and weakness, far 
more than is necessary for the salvation of every man. Much is 
required from him to whom much is given. He only has merely 
the responsibility which belongs to every man, who has no more 
than that which is given to every man. He who has all the 
opportunity of knowing God's whole truth, and God's whole 
will, will not be saved on the standard of the Caffre or the 
Digger. To make that which is essential to every man the 
standard, to put it at the minimum at which any creature 
could be saved, would be to encourage the lowering of the 
faith and life of millions, to reach at best a few cases. But 
even in this minimum, particular Churches would differ — and 
still some would exclude from the Church militant, those 
whom others regarded as possibly part of the Church tri- 
umphant. 

There is another fallacy involved in this theory. The Creed 
does not, as this theory assumes, exclude from membership those 
who merely have a defective faith — it is only those who teach 



EXCOMMUNICATION— FORCE AND EXTENT. 191 

against a part of the faith or deny it publicly whom it shuts out. 
Ignorance and mental imbecility may prevent many from com- 
prehending certain parts of a system, but no particular church, 
however rigid, designs to exclude such from its Communion. 

The theory ignores the fact that the Church should make 
the standard of faith, and morals, the highest possible, not the 
lowest. She should lead men, not to the least faith, the least 
holiness which makes salvation possible, but to the very high- 
est — she should not encourage the religion whose root is a 
selfish fear of hell, a selfish craving of heaven, but she should 
plant that religion to which pure truth is dear for its own 
sake, which longs for the fullest illumination, which desires 
not the easy road, but the sure one. 

This theory, too, in asserting that there is a false assump- 
tion of catholicity in such exclusions as it condemns, forgets 
that the only discipline in the Church Universal is that now 
exercised by the particular Churches. A pure particular 
Church is not a sect, but is of the Church Catholic. The par- 
ticular Church must meet its own responsibility — it claims no 
more than the right to exclude from its own com- Force and ex 
munion — and does not pretend to force any other tentofexcommu- 
particular Church to respect its discipline. If we 
exclude a man for what we believe to be heresy, that does not 
prevent his union with another part of the Church which 
regards his view as orthodox. The worship of what we be- 
lieve to be a wafer, may exclude a man from our Communion, 
but it will prepare for him a welcome to the Church of Rome, 
which believes that wafer to be incarnate God. There such a 
man belongs. His exclusion does not deny that a man may 
believe in Transubstantiation and yet be saved. Nor let it be 
forgotten that no excommunication is valid unless it be author- 
ized of God. All the fulminations of all the particular Churches 
on earth combined cannot drive out of God's kingdom the 
man he is pleased to keep in it. If the excommunication be 
righteous, no man dare object to it ; if it be unrighteous, the 
man has not been excluded by it from the Church militant. 
No man can be really kept or forced out of the Church mili- 
tant except by God's act or his own. 



192 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Let us now test the principle by a particular case. The doc- 
trine of the Lord's Supper is the one which in the whole com- 
pass of Lutheran doctrine has been most objected to on the 
ground just stated. The objector to specific Creeds asks, 
whether the Lutheran doctrine of the Sacrament is a part of 
Christian orthodoxy, or only of Lutheran orthodoxy? We 
reply, that it is a part of both. Lutheran orthodoxy, if it be 
really orthodoxy, is, of necessity, Christian orthodoxy, for 
there is no other. The Lutheran doctrinal system, if it be 
orthodox, is, of necessity, Scriptural and Christian. If we 
admit that the doctrine of the Sacrament taught by our Church 
is taught also in the Eew Testament, the error to which it is 
opposed is, of course, inconsistent with the IsTew Testament, 
and, therefore, with Christianity. Either the Lutheran doc- 
trine on the Sacrament is Christian, or it is not. If it be not 
Christian, then it is not orthodoxy ; if it be Christian, then 
the opposite of it is, of necessity, not Christian. As we under- 
stand the questioner to reason with us on our own ground, 
and to grant our supposition, for argument's sake, we regard 
his question as really answering itself, as we cannot suppose 
that he maintains, that two conflicting systems can both be 
sound, two irreconcilable statements both truthful, two doc- 
trines, destructive of each other, both orthodox. 

But, inasmuch as this exact construction of the drift of the 
question makes the answer to it so obvious, we are inclined to 
think that its point is somewhat different, and that what is 
meant, is, Whether it be necessary to a man's being a Christian 
in general, or only to his being a Lutheran Christian, that he 
should be sound in this doctrine ? To this we reply that, to 

wi.om ma ^he P ei> f ec t ideal of a Christian in general, it is 
nize as essential that he should embrace the whole faith 
of the gospel, and that defective or false faith in 
regard to the sacraments, so far mars, as defective faith on any 
point will, the perfect ideal. All other things being equal, the 
Christian, who does not hold the New Testament doctrine of 
the Sacrament, is by so much, short of the perfect ideal 
reached, on this point, by the man who does hold that doc- 
trine ; or, supposing, as we do suppose, that this doctrine is 



we reco 
Christians ? 



CHRISTIANS IN THE CHURCH OF ROME. 193 

purely held by our Church, by so much does the non-Lutheran 
Christian fall short of the full life of faith of the Lutheran 
Christian. It is in the "unity of the faith" that we are to 
" come to the fulness of the stature of perfect men in Christ 
Jesus." But the question still seems so easy of solution, that 
we apprehend another point may be : Can a man be a Chris- 
tian, who does not receive what, on our supposition, as a 
Lutheran, is the New Testament orthodoxy in regard to the 
Sacrament ? If this be the point, we unhesitatingly reply, 
that a man may here be in unconscious error, and be a Chris- 
tian. A man, who sees that the New Testament teaches a 
doctrine, and yet rejects it, is not a Christian. The man who 
never has thoroughly examined the New Testament evidence 
on the subject, and this is the position of many, is so far lack- 
ing in honesty. The man who grossly misrepresents the doc- 
trine, and coarsely vilifies it, is guilty of a great crime. Here 
the decision involves no difficulty, and yet it is one of the 
hardest practical questions to determine, what amount of incon- 
sistency with the demands of Christianity is necessary to prove 
a man to be no Christian ; and this difficult question pertains 
not alone to the faith of the Christian, but to his life ; it is 
both doctrinal and practical. Certainly, there are many points 
of a self-consistent New Testament morality, in which men 
come fearfully short, whom we yet think we are bound to con- 
sider as Christians — weak, inconsistent, and in great peril, yet 
still Christians. It is hazardous, indeed, to provide for any 
degree of aberration in Christian morals or in Christian faith. 
Our Church is a liberal Church, in the true sense ; she is liberal 
with what belongs to her, but not liberal in giving away her 
Master's goods, contrary to His order. The truth, in its 
minutest part, she does not trifle with. For herself and her 
children, she must hold it with uncompromising fidelity. But 
she heartily believes, that, even where some portion of the 
truth is lost or obscured, God may, through what is left, per- 
petuate a Christian life. She believes that God has His own 
blessed ones, kept through His almighty grace, through all 
Christendom. She believes, that, in the Romish Church, Pas- 
cal and Fenelon, and many of the obscure and unknown, were 

13 



194 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

true followers of Jesus ; she believes that Christ may preserve 
many of His own- there now. Even in considering the Pope 
as in his claims and assumptions an Antichrist, she does 
not exclude him as a person from the possibility of salvation ; 
but she dares not let go her truthful testimony against Romish 

christians in errors - She dare not let her children think that it 
the church of jg a matter of indifference, whether they hold to 
justification by faith, or justification by works, 
or, as regards the Sacrament, hold to the opus operatum, Tran- 
substantiation, and the Mass, or to the pure doctrine she con- 
fesses. And here we throw back upon such an objector his 
own question. He acknowledges that Luther was a Christian 
before he left the Church of Rome, and that God has His own 
saints, even under the corrupt system of that Church. Are 
his own views, then, against the opus operatum, against Tran- 
substantiation and the Mass, a part of Christian orthodoxy, or 
only of Protestant orthodoxy ? Shall our Protestant creeds exclude 
a man from our Protestant Churches and Pulpits, because he 
is a Romanist, who, we yet acknowledge, may be God's child, 
and an heir of heaven? As to the great Communions, whose 
distinctive life originated in the Era of the Reformation, the 
case is no less clear. We need hardly say how heartily we 
acknowledge, that, in the Evangelical Protestant Churches, in 
their ministry and people, there are noble exemplifications of 
Christian grace. Nevertheless, we do not believe that there is 
a Christian living, who would not be more perfect as a Chris- 
tian, in a pure New Testament faith in regard to the Sacra- 
ments, than he can be in human error regarding them, and we 
believe that pure New Testament faith to be the faith which 
is confessed by our Church. At the same time, we freely 
acknowledge, that, as Channing, though a Unitarian, was 

christians in more lovely morally than many a Trinitarian, so, 

the Protestant much more, may some particular Christians, who 

are in error on the matter of the Sacraments, far 

surpass in Christian grace some individuals, who belong to a 

Church, whose sacramental faith is pure. Some men are on 

the level of their systems, some rise above them, some fall below 

them. 



COURSE OF ERROR IN THE CHURCH. 195 

A human body may not only live, but be healthy, in which 
one lobe of the lungs is gone ; another may be sickly and die, 
in which the lungs are perfect. Nevertheless, the complete 
lungs are an essential part of a perfect human body. We still 
truly call a man a man, though he may have lost arms and 
legs ; we still call a hand a hand, though it may have lost a 
finger, or be distorted. "While, therefore, we freely call systems 
and men Christian, though they lack a sound sacramental doc- 
trine, we none the less consider that doctrine essential to a 
complete Christian system, and to the perfect faith of a Chris- 
tian man. The man who has lost an arm, we love none the 
less. If he has lost it by carelessness, we pity his misfortune, 
yet we do not hold him free from censure. But, when he in- 
sists, that, to have two arms, is a blemish, and proposes to cut 
off one of ours, then we resist him. Somewhere on earth, if the 
gates of hell have not prevailed against the Church, there is a 
Communion whose fellowship involves no departure from a 
solitary article of Christian faith — and no man should be will- 
ing to be united with any other Communion. The man who 
is sure there is no such Communion is bound to put forth the 
effort to originate it. He who knows of no Creed which is 
true to the Rule of Faith, in all its articles, should at once pre- 
pare one that is. Every Christian is bound either to find a 
Church on Earth, pure in its whole faith, or to make one. On 
the other hand, he who says that the Church is wrong, con- 
fesses in that very assertion, that if the Church be right, he is 
an errorist ; and that in asking to share her communion while 
he yet denies her doctrine, he asks her to adopt the principle 
that error is to be admitted to her bosom, for as an errorist 
and only as an errorist can she admit him. 

But the practical result of this principle is one on which 
there is no need of speculating; it works in one Course of Error 
unvarying way. When error is admitted into the in the church. 
Church, it will be found that the stages of its progress are 
always three. It begins by asking toleration. Its friends say 
to the majority: You need not be afraid of us; we are few, and 
weak ; only let us alone ; we shall not disturb the faith of 
others. The Church has her standards of doctrine ; of course 



196 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

we shall never interfere with them ; we only ask for ourselves 
to he spared interference with our private opinions. Indulged 
in this for a time, error goes on to assert equal rights. -Truth 
and error are two balancing forces. The Church shall do 
nothing which looks like deciding between them ; that would 
be partiality. It is bigotry to assert any superior right for 
the truth. We are to agree to differ, and any favoring of 
the truth, because it is truth, is partisanship. What the 
friends of truth and error hold in common is fundamental. 
Anything on which they differ is ipso facto non-essential. 
Anybody who makes account of such a thing is a disturber of 
the peace of the church. Truth and error are two co-ordinate 
powers, and the great secret of church-statesmanship is to pre- 
serve the balance between them. From this point error soon 
goes on to its natural end, which is to assert supremacy. Truth 
started with tolerating; it comes to be merely tolerated, and 
that only for a time. Error claims a preference for its judg- 
ments on all disputed points. It puts men into positions, not as 
at first in spite of their departure from the Church's faith, but 
in consequence of it. Their recommendation is that they re- 
pudiate that faith, and position is given them to teach others 
to repudiate it, and to make them skilful in combating it. 

So necessary, so irresistible are these facts, and the principles 
they throw into light, that we find in history the name of the 
Evangelical Lutheran Church, from the hour of its first dis- 
tinctive use, linked for centuries with one unvarying feature 
everywhere. Divided among nationalities, speaking diverse 
tongues, developing different internal tendencies within certain 
rideiit of the li m it s ? and without absolute identity as to the 
Lutheran church universal recognition of certain books as standards 
of doctrine, we find one unchanging element ; the 
Evangelical Lutheran Church accepted the Augsburg Con- 
fession as scriptural throughout. Such a phenomenon as an 
Evangelical Lutheran claiming the right of assailing a doctrine 
taught in the Augsburg Confession was unknown. 

When Spener, Francke, and the original Pietistic school 
nought to develop the spiritual life of the Church, they did it 
by enforcing the doctrines of the Church in their living power. 



CHARACTER OF RATIONALISM. 197 

They accomplished their work by holding more firmly and 
exhibiting more completely in all their aspects the doctrines of 
the Reformation, confessed at Augsburg. The position of them 
all was that the doctrines of our Church are the doctrines of 
God's Word, that no changes were needed, or could be allowed 
in them ; that in doctrine her Reformation was complete, and 
that her sole need was by sound discipline to maintain, and by 
holy activity to exhibit, practically, her pure faith. These men 
of God and the great theologians they influenced, and the noble 
missionaries they sent forth, held the doctrines of the Church 
firmly. They wrought those great works, the praises of 
which are in all Christendom, through these very doctrines. 
They did not mince them, nor draw subtle distinctions by 
which to evade or practically ignore them, but, alike upon the 
most severely controverted, as upon the more generally recog- 
nized, doctrines of our Church, they were thoroughly Lutheran. 
They held the Sacramental doctrines of our Church tenaciously, 
and defended the faith of the Church in regard to Baptism 
and the Lord's Supper, as they did all her other doctrines. It 
was Semler and Bahrdt, Gabler, Wegscheider and Bretschnei- 
der, and men of their class, who first invented, or acted on, the 
theory that men could be Lutherans, and assail the doctrines 
of the Church. Better men than those whose names we have 
mentioned were influenced and perverted in different degrees 
by the rationalistic spirit of the time. They did not assail the 
doctrines of the Church, but they either passed them by in 
silence, or defended them with a reservedness practically equiv- 
alent to a betrayal. It looked as if the edifice of our fathers' 
faith might be utterly overthrown. As Deism was eating 
away the spiritual life of the Episcopal Church of England 
and of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland ; as Socinianism was 
laying waste the Independent Churches of the same lands, as at 
a later period it rolled over New England ; as Atheism swept 
away Romanism in France; so did Rationalism 

Character of 

rear itself in the Lutheran Church. Established Rationalism. 
as our Church was on God's Word, what could 
move her but to take from her that Word, or to lead her to 
some new and false mode of interpreting it? This was the 



198 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

work of Rationalism — to pretend to hold the Word, but to 
corrupt its sense, so that the Confession and the Word should 
no longer seem to correspond. The mischief seemed to be 
incurable ; but God did not forsake his own work. The evil 
brought its own cure. The mischief wrought until it was 
found that the idea of men calling themselves by the name of 
a Church, and yet claiming the right to assail its doctrines, 
was the idea of Infidelity in the bud — it was Belial allowed 
to take shelter under the hem of the garment of Christ. Any 
man who will read thoughtfully the history of Rationalism in 
Europe, and of the Unionism which is now^ too often its 
stronghold, will not wonder at the earnestness of true Luther- 
anism in Germany, and of Synods which are in affinity with it, 
in maintaining a pure Confession. He will have no difficulty 
in comprehending their indisposition to tolerate indifferentism, 
rationalism, and heresy, under the pretence of union. They 
cannot call bitter sweet, while their lips are yet wet with the 
wormwood which was forced upon them. 

The history of Rationalism in our Church will show certain 
phases, of which we will offer a hint : 

I. In the first place, the doctrine of the Church was con- 
ceded to be true, but its relative importance was detracted 

History of Ra- fr° m - It was argued that doctrinal theories should 
tionaiism. k e thrown into the background, and that directly 

practical and experimental truths, separated from their true 
connections in the profounder doctrines, should be exclusively 
urged. (Pseudo-Pietism and Fanaticism.) 

II. Prom an impaired conviction of the value of these con- 
ceded doctrines, grew a disposition to ignore the doctrines 
which divided the Lutheran and Reformed Communions. The 
Divine Word was not to be pressed in cases in which there was a 
reluctance to accept its teachings. Prom this arose Unionistic 
efforts on the basis of a general Protestant orthodoxy, and an 
assimilation on the part of the Lutheran Church to the Re- 
formed basis, tendency, and doctrine. 

III. Prom the disposition to under value and ignore these 
doctrines, arose the feeling that if they could be entirely set 
aside, there would be a great gain to the cause of unity. Why 



HISTORY OF RATIONALISM. 199 

agree to differ, when, by a free criticism, the very causes of 
differences could be thrown out of the way? These distinctive 
doctrines originated in too strict a conception of the inspira- 
tion and weight of the Bible language. Why not liberalize 
its interpretation ? Thus arose the earlier and more moderate 
rationalism of Semler and of his School. 

IV. Then came the beginning of the end. Men, still in the 
outward communion of the Church, claimed the right to sub- 
mit all its doctrines to their critical processes. Refined and 
Vulgar Rationalism, mainly distinguished by their degrees of 
candor, divided the ministry, carried away the Reformed 
Church, and, to a large extent, even the Romish, with our own, 
broke up the liturgical, catechetical, and hymnological life, and 
destroyed the souls of the people. Unblushing infidelity took 
on it the livery of the Church. Men had rejected the Faith of 
the Rule, and were still good Lutherans. Why not reject the 
Rule of Faith, and be good Lutherans ? The Faith of those 
men of the olden time, men who were, by more than two cen- 
turies, wiser than their fathers, had proved to be mere human 
speculation. Why might not the Rule be? They soon settled 
that question, and the Bible was flung after the Confession, and 
men were allowed to be anything they pleased to be, and to bear 
any name they chose. The less Lutheran they were in the old 
sense of the word, the more were they Lutherans in the new 
sense. They not only insisted on being called Lutherans, but 
insisted they were the only genuine Lutherans. Had not Luther 
disenthralled the human mind? Was not the Reformation 
simply an assertion of the powers of human reason, and of the 
right of private judgment ? Was it not an error of Luther's 
dark day, that, when he overthrew the fear of the Pope, he left 
the fear of God — which simply substitutes an impalpable 
Papacy for a visible one ? Would not Luther, if he had only 
been so happy as to have lived to read their writings, certainly 
have been brought over to the fullest liberty ? Who could doubt 
it ? So out of the whole work of the Reformer, the only posi- 
tive result which they regarded him as having reached was 
embraced in the well-known lines, which there is, indeed, no 
evidence that he wrote, but which are so far in advance of 



200 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

everything in his indubitably genuine works, as to be, in their 
eyes, supra -canonical, to wit : 

Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib und Gesang, 
Der bleibt ein Narr sein Leben lang. 

This is all they have left as fundamental in the Reformer's 
creed. Such is the Genesis, and such the Eevelation of the 
European History of the sort of Lutheranism which claims the 
right to mutilate and assail the faith of the Church. Ought 
we not to tremble at it and take heed how we make a single 
step toward its terrible fallacy and its fearful results ? 

In the great mercy of God a reaction and revival in the true 
sense is taking place. It goes on in the Old "World. 

Restoration of ° ■*- ° 

the church It goes on in the ."New. The work is going on, and 
will go on, until the old ways have been found — 
till the old banner again floats on every breeze, and the old 
faith, believed, felt, and lived, shall restore the Church to her 
primal glory and holy strength. God speed the day ! For,our 
Church's name, her history, her sorrows, and her triumphs, 
her glory in what has been, her power for the good yet to be, 
all are bound up with the principle that purity in the faith 
is first of all, such a first, that without it there can be no true 
second. 



VI. 

THE CONFESSIONS OF THE CONSEKVATIVE 
REFORMATION. 

THE PRIMARY CONFESSION. THE CONFESSION OF 
AUGSBURG.* 



IT is with a solemn and holy delight we have learned to 
traverse the venerable edifice, which the hands of our fathers 
erected in the sixteenth century. There is none of the glitter 
which catches and fascinates the childish eye, but Spirit of the 
all possesses that solid grandeur which fills the Reformation. 
soul. Every part harmonizes with the whole, and conspires in 

* The Bibliography we propose to give, in the notes to this dissertation, is 
not a general one, but is confined to the works which are in the hands of the 
writer, and, with a few exceptions, in his library. It will be found, however, 
to embrace all that are of the highest importance, so far as the diligence of the 
collector, stretching itself over years, has been able to bring them together. We 
give in this note only the Bibliography of the Bibliography of the Confession. 

I. Notices in works of a general character. 

Buddei Isagoge (1730) 426, 437. — Noesselt, J. A. : Anweisung (3d ed. 1818) 
ii. 272.— Planck, G. J. : Einleitung (1795) ii. 592.— Danz: Encyclopaedic (1832) 
415.— Walch: Bibliotheca Theologica (1757) i. 327-362, iv. 1099.— Niemeyer: 
Prediger Bibliothek (1784) iii. 63-69. —Noesselt: Kenntniss Bucher (1790) 
§ 507, 508.— Furrmann: Handbuch der Theolog. Literat. (1819) ii. a. 500, 507.— 
Ersch: Literatur der Theologie. (1822)119. — Danz: Universal Worterbuch. 
(1843) 96, 186, 921. Supplem. 22.— Winer: Handbuch. (3d ed. 1838) i. 323,572. 
ii. 316. Supplem. (1842) 53.— Katsers : Index Librorum, Confession, etc. 

II. Special notices of its Literature. 

Pfaff, C. M. : Introd. in Histor. Theolog. Liter. Tubing. 1726. iii. 385-416.— 
Jo. Alb. Fabricius: Centifolium Lutheranum (Hamb. 1728-30. ii. 8) i. 104-144, 

201 



202 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the proof that their work was not to pull down, but to erect. 
The spirit of the Reformation was no destroying angel, who 
sat and scowled with a malignant joy over the desolation which 
spread around. It was overshadowed by the wings of that 
Spirit who brooded indeed on the waste of waters and the 
wilderness of chaos, but only that he might unfold the germs 
of life that lay hidden there, and bring forth light and order 
from the darkness of the yet formless and void creation. It 
is vastly more important, then, to know what the Eeformation 
retained than what it overthrew ; for the overthrow of error, 
though often an indispensable prerequisite to the establishment 
of truth, is not truth itself; it may clear the foundation, sim- 
ply to substitute one error for another, perhaps a greater for a 
less. Profoundly important, indeed, is the history of that 
which the Reformation accomplished against the errors of 
Romanism, yet it is as nothing to the history of that which it 
accomplished for itself. The overthrow of Romanism was not 

ii. 583-606. — Bibliotheca Retmanniana (1731) p. 403. —Walchii, J. G. : Intro- 
ductio in Libr. Symbol. Jena, 1732. 196-257. — Walchii, J. G. : Religions- 
streitigkeiten der Evang. Luth. Kirche. Jena, 2d ed. 1733-1739. i. 35. iv. 4. — 
Walch, J. G. : Chr. Concordienb. Jena, 1750. p. 21. — Baumgarten, S. J.: Er- 
lauterungen der Symb. Schriften. Halle, 1761. p. 54-60. — Walchii, C. G. F. : 
Breviar. Theolog. Symb. Eccl. Luth. Gottingen, 1765. p. 69-75. — Baumgarten, 
S. J. : Geschichte der Religions-partheyen. Halle, 1866. p. 1150-1153. — J. W. 
Feuerlen: Bibliotheca Symbolica — edid. J. Barth. Riederer (Norimb. 1768.) 
8. p 70 seq. — Koecher : Bibliotheca theologiae symbolicae et catecheticse item- 
que liturgica. Guelferb. 1751.114-137. — H. W. Rotermund: Geschichte, etc., 
(1829) p. 192-203. — Semleri: Apparatus ad Libr. Symbol. Eccl. Luth. Halae 
Mag. 1775.. pp. 39, 42. — Beck, C. D. : Commentar. histor. deCret. relig. chr. et 
formulae Lutheriae. Leipz., 1801. p. 148, 794. — Tittmann, J. A. H. : Instit. 
Symbolic, ad Sentent. Eccles. Evang. Lipsiae, 1811. p. 92. — TJkert : Luther's 
Leben. Gotha, 1817. i. 227-293. — Fuhrmann: Handworterbuch der Christ. 
Relig. u. Kirchengesch. Halle, 1826. i. 537. — Yelin : Versuch einer histor- 
liter. Darst. der Symbol. Schriften. Niirnberg, 1829. p. 67. — Pfaff, K. : Ge- 
schichte des Reichst. zu Augsburg. Stuttg., 1830. p. v.-x. — Bretschneider : Sys- 
temat. Entwickelung. Leipz., (1804). 4th ed. 1841. 81-86. — C. A. Hase: Libr. 
Symb. Lips., 1827 (1845) proleg. iii.— J. T. L. Danz: Die Augsb. Confess., etc. 
(1829) 1-4. — Kollner : Symb. der Luther. Kirche. Hamburg, 1837. p. 150- 
152. — Guereke, H. E. F.: Symbolik (1839), 3d Aufl. Leipz., 1861. 104-110.— 
Muller, J. T. : Symb. Biicher. Stuttg., 1848. xv. xvii. — Matthes, K. : Compar. 
Symbolik. Leipz., 1854. p. 76. — Herzog: Real Encyclop. Hamb., 1864. i. 
234. — Hofmann: Rud. Symbolik. Leipz., 1857. p. 234. — Corpus Reformato- 
ry, (1857), vol. xxvi. Pars Prior. 101-111. 201-204. 



SPIRIT OF THE REFORMATION. 203 

its primary object ; in a certain sense it was not its object at 
all. Its object was to establish truth., no matter what might 
rise or fall in the effort. Had the Reformation assumed the 
form which some who have since borne the name of Protest- 
ants would have given it, it would not even have been a splen- 
did failure ; the movement which has shaken and regenerated 
a world would have ended in few miserable squabbles, a few 
autos da fe ; and the record of a history, which daily makes 
the hearts of thousands burn within them, would have been 
exchanged for some such brief notice as this : that an irascible 
monk, named Luder, or Luther, and a few insane coadjutors, 
having foolishly attempted to overthrow the holy Roman See, 
and remaining obstinate in their pernicious and detestable 
heresies, were burned alive, to the glory of God and the Virgin 
Mary, and to the inexpressible satisfaction of all the faithful. 
The mightiest weapon which the Reformation employed against 
Rome was, not Rome's errors, but Rome's truths. It professed 
to make no discoveries, to find no unheard-of interpretations ; 
but taking the Scriptures in that very sense to which the 
greatest of her writers had assented, uncovering the law and 
the gospel of God which she retained, applying them as her 
most distinguished and most honored teachers had applied 
them, though she had made them of none effect by her tradi- 
tions, the Reformation took into its heart the life-stream of six- 
teen centuries, and came forth in the stature and strength of a 
Christianity, grown from the infancy of primitive ages, to the 
ripened manhood of that maturer period. There was no fear 
of truth, simply because Rome held it, and no disposition to 
embrace error, because it might be employed with advantage 
to Rome's injury. While it established broadly and deeply 
the right of private judgment, it did not make that abuse of 
it which has since been so common. From the position, that 
the essential truths of the word of God are clear to any Chris- 
tian mind that examines them properly, it did not leap to the 
conclusion, that a thousand generations or a thousand exam- 
iners were as likely, or more likely, to be wrong than one. 
They allowed no authority save to the word of God, but they 
listened respectfully to the witness of believers of all time. 



201 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

The tone which is imparted to the mind and heart, by the 
theology of the Reformation, is just what we now most need. 
But where are we to commence, it may he asked, in the infinite 
importance of variety of works that have been written about the 
the confessions. Reformation and its theology? " Art is long and 
life is fleeting." And how is the clergyman to find the books, 
or buy them when found, or read them when bought, destitute, 
as he is too wont to be, alike of money and time? We reply, 
that an immense treasure lies in a narrow compass, and within 
the reach of every minister in our land. By a careful study 
of the symbolical books of our Church, commencing with the 
Augsburg Confession and its Apology, a more thorough under- 
standing of the history, difficulties, true genius, and triumphs 
of the Reformation will be attained, than by reading every- 
thing that can be got, or that has ever been written about that 
memorable movement. It is, indeed, too much the fashion 
now to read about things, to the neglect of the great original 
sources themselves. In general literature much is written and 
read about Homer and Shakspeare, until these great poets 
attract less attention than their critics. In theology it is the 
prevailing practice to have students read introductions to the 
Bible, and essays on various features of it, to such a degree that 
the Bible itself, except in an indirect form, is hardly studied at 
all, and the student, though often introduced to it, never fairly 
makes its acquaintance. All these illustrative works, if well 
executed, have their value ; but that value presupposes such a 
general acquaintance with the books to which they serve as a 
guide, as is formed by every man for himself who carefully 
examines them. The greatest value of every work of the 
human mind, after all, generally lies in that which needs no 
guide, no critic, no commentator. Their labors may display 
more clearly, and thus enhance, this value, and are not to be 
despised ; but their subject is greater than themselves, and 
they are useful only when they lead to an accurate and critical 
knowledge of that with which a general acquaintance has been 
formed by personal examination. It is now conceded, for 
example, that in the order of nature the general knowledge 
of language must precede an accurate, grammatical acquaint- 



RELATIONS TO THE REFORMATION. 205 

ance with it. They may he formed indeed together, part pre- 
ceding part, hut if they must he separated, the general is bet- 
ter than the scientific. If, in a library, there were two cases, 
one containing all the Latin grammars and the other all the 
Latin classics, and one boy was kept six years to the classics 
and another six years to the grammars, the first would under- 
stand the language practically, the second would understand 
nothing, not even the grammar. 

And this principle it is easy to apply as regards its bearings 
on those great masterly treatises which form our 
Symbolical books. They are parts of the Reforma- the Reformation. 
Hon itself: not merely witnesses in the loose sense 
in which histories are, but the actual results, the quintessence 
of the excited theological and moral elements of the time. In 
them you are brought into immediate contact with that sub- 
lime convulsion itself. Its strength and its weakness, its fears 
and its hopes, the truths it exalted, the errors and abuses it 
threw down, are here presented in the most solemn and 
strongly authenticated form in which they gave them to pos- 
terity. They are nerves running from the central seat of 
thought of that ancient, glorious, and immortal time, to us, 
who form the extremities. To see the force of every word, 
the power of every allusion, requires an intimate acquaintance 
with the era and the men, in forming which the student will 
be led delightfully into a thorough communion and profound 
sympathy with that second greatest period in human history. 
The child of our Church will find occasion to exult, not only 
in those brighter parts of our history and of our doctrines, 
whose lustre fills every eye, but even in those particulars on 
which ignorance, envy, and jealousy have based their power- 
less attacks; — will find, when he reaches a thorough under- 
standing of them, new occasion to utter, with a heart swelling 
with an honorable pride, " I, too, am a Lutheran." We are 
not such gross idolaters, nor so ignorant of the declarations of 
these great men themselves, as to imagine that they left nothing 
for their posterity to do. Whether their posterity has done 
it, and done it well, is, however, a very distinct question. To 
assume that, merely because we follow them in order of time, 



206 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

we have gone farther than they in truth, is to lay the founda- 
tion of a principle more absurd and pernicious than the worst 
doctrine of the Church of Rome, and is as foolish as to say, that 
the child of to-day, four years of age, is a greater astronomer 
than Newton, because he lives in the century after him. 

But while we concede that we may and ought to advance, 
we wish explicitly to say, that we mean by advance, progress 
in the same direction. We are aware of no particular in which 
advance demands, or is even compatible with a desertion of 
the fundamental principles of our fathers. They may have 
Nature of true made mistakes, and nothing but mistakes ; they 
progress. ma ^ have known nothing, and we may know every 

thing ; but we have seen no evidence that such is the case, and 
until it be brought before us, we must beg indulgence for our 
skepticism. This much we can safely assert, that those who 
understand best the theology of the Reformation, have most 
confidence in it, and the strongest affection for it ; to them it 
seems still to stand in its original glory, firm as the eternal 
mountains. That which strikes them painfully, as they grow 
more and more familiar with that stout heart, whose life- 
blood is warming us, is that we have not advanced as we 
should ; that though we have the shoulders of these giants of 
a* former world, from which, alas ! a flood of infidelity and 
theological frivolity seems to separate us, on which to stand, 
there are so many things in which we do not see as far as they. 
It is because slothfulness or ignorance prevents us from occupy- 
ing that position to which they would lift us, because taking 
a poor and narrow view of their labors, and measuriug them 
by some contemptible little standard, sometimes one set up by 
their enemies, and yet oftener by those who are more injurious 
than their enemies, their superficial and injudicious professed 
friends, we permit our minds to be prejudiced against them. 
A simple heart is of more value than mere science in the 
apprehension of religious truth ; and never has there been wit- 
nessed such a union of gigantic powers, with such a child-like 
spirit, as among the theologians of the sixteenth century. In 
vain do we increase the facilities for the attainment of knowl- 
edge, if we do not correspondingly strengthen the temper of 



SPIRIT OF OUR TIME. 207 

mind and heart essential to its acquisition. It by no means, 
therefore, follows, that even minds of the same order in our 
own day, would go beyond the point to which the Reforma- 
tion was carried ; because circumstances more embarrassing 
than those of the sixteenth century may now lie around the 
pathway of theological truth. Flattery is a more dangerous 
thing than bodily peril ; a vain and superficial tendency will 
do more mischief than even an excess of the supernatural ele- 
ment, and the spirit of the Romish Church, and the s irit of our 
prejudices insensibly imbibed in her communion, time adverse to 

, . . . . n , i thoroughness. 

are not more pernicious as a preparation tor the 
examination of divine truth, than is a cold, self-confident, and 
rationalizing mind. If we do not contemptuously reject all 
aid in search after truth, to whom can we go with more confi- 
dence than to the great authors of the Reformation? We 
know them at least to be sincere ; no hireling scribblers, writ- 
ing to tickle the fancy of the time ; we know them to be the 
thorough masters of their subjects, conscious that every word 
would be examined and every argument fiercely assailed by 
their foes. Every doctrine they established by the word of 
God, and confirmed by the witness of his Church. Every 
objection which is now urged, was then brought to bear upon 
the truth. Controversy has added nothing to its stores; they 
knew perfectly those superficial, miscalled reasons which make 
men now so confident in saying, that had the Reformers only 
lived in our time, they would have abandoned much to which 
they held. They knew them, but they lived and died unchang- 
ing in their adherence to what they had taught as truth. It 
is a cheap and popular way of getting rid of anything in the 
theology of the Reformation which is not palatable, by pre- 
tending that it is a remnant of Popery, as Rationalists evade 
the force of Scripture declarations, by saying they are accom- 
modations to Jewish prejudices. Among these remnants of 
Popery, have for instance been enumerated the doctrines of 
the Trinity, and the deity of Christ, of the Atonement, of 
eternal punishment, in short, of every thing which is distinc- 
tive of Evangelical Christianity. No position could be more 
violent in regard to all the doctrines of our Confession. They 



208 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

not only can be demonstrated from Scripture, but can be shown 
to have been fully received in the Church before Popery had a 
name or a being. It would be far more natural to suppose, 
that in the fierce and imbittered strife with that gigantic sys- 
tem of Error, a part of the Protestant party would be driven to 
deny some truths, by whose abuse the Church of Rome strove 
to maintain her power. The insinuation of Romish influence 
is a sword with a double edge, and is almost sure to wound 
those who handle it ; it is, in fact, ordinarily but the refuge 
of a sectarian spirit, which tries to accomplish by exciting 
odium, what it failed to do by argument. 

But are those Confessions, after all, of any value to the 
American and American Lutheran preacher? it may be asked. 
German. ¥e cannot conceal our sorrow, that that term, 

" American," should be made so emphatic, dear and hallowed 
though it be to our heart. Why should we break or weaken 
the golden chain which unites us to the high and holy associ- 
ations of our history as a Church, by thrusting into a false 
position a word which makes a national appeal ? Is there a 
conflict between the two, when carried to their very farthest 
limits ? Must Lutheranism be shorn of its glory to adapt it 
to our times or our land? No ! Our land is great, and wide, 
and glorious, and destined, we trust, under the sunlight of her 
free institutions, long to endure ; but our faith is wider, and 
greater, and is eternal. The world owes more to the Reforma- 
tion than to America ; America owes more to it than to her- 
self. The names of our Country and of our Church should 
excite no conflict, but blend harmoniously together. We are 
placed here in the midst of sectarianism, and it becomes us, not 
lightly to consent to swell that destructive torrent of separ- 
atism which threatens the welfare of pure Christianity on our 
shores more than all other causes combined. We are sur- 
rounded by the children of those Churches, which claim an 
origin in the Reformation. We sincerely respect and love 
them ; we fervently pray that they may be increased in every 
labor of love, and may be won more and more to add to that 
precious truth, which they set forth with such power, those no 
less precious doctrines which, in the midst of so wide an aban- 



AMERICAN AND GERMAN. 209 

donment of the faith once delivered to the saints, God has, in 
our Confession, preserved to us. But how shall we make our- 
selves worthy of their respect, and lift ourselves out of the 
sphere of that pitiful little sectarianism which is crawling con- 
tinually over all that is churchly and stable ? We must begin 
by knowing ourselves, and being true to that knowledge. Let 
us not, with our rich coffers, play the part of beggars, and ask 
favors where we have every ability to impart them. ISTo 
Church can maintain her self-respect or inspire respect in 
others, which is afraid or ashamed of her own history, and 
which rears a dubious fabric on the ignorance of her ministry 
and of her members. Whatever flickerings of success may 
play around her, she will yet sink to rise no more, and, worse 
than this, no honest man will lament her fall ; for however 
such a moral dishonesty may be smoothed over, every reflect- 
ing man sees that such a Church is an organized lie, with a 
ministry, congregations, churches, and societies united to sus- 
tain a lie. From this feeling a gracious Providence has almost 
wholly preserved our Church in this country. To whatever 
extent want of information or the pressure of surrounding 
denominations may have produced the practical departure of 
individuals from some of the principles of our Church, our 
common origin and our glorious annals have formed a bond of 
sympathy. Struggling against difficulties which would have 
crushed a church with less vitality, the Lutheran Communion 
in this country has always preserved some honorable feeling 
of her own dignity and proper value. The salt ivhich has pre- 
served her is Germanic. On these shores she has yet, properly, 
little history, comparatively ; when she looks toward the realm 
of her might and glory, she must cast her eye over the Atlantic 
wave, and roll back her thoughts over the lapse of two cen- 
turies. She has been, and is yet, passing through a period of 
transition from one language and one national bond to another. 
The question of language has interest only so far as it concerns 
the question of Church life, and in its bearings on this should 
be watched with a tender and trembling interest. Xo doubt 
there were cases in which the opposition of the earlier Lu- 
therans in this country, to the introduction of the English 

14 



210 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

language in our Church, arose from narrow views and feelings 
simply as Germans, but in yet more instances did it spring 
from fears, which our subsequent history has shown not to be 
wholly groundless, that Lutheranism itself — our life, our doc- 
trines, our usages — so dear to their hearts, might be endan- 
gered by the change. 

Whatever, then, may be our sentiments as to the judgment 
they displayed, let us do honor, at least, to their motives. 
They saw that the language of our land contained no Lutheran 
literature, no history just to the claims of our Church, no spirit 
which, on the whole, could be said fully to meet the genius of 
our Church. They feared that, under these circumstances, Lu- 
theranism would melt away, or become the mere creature of 
the influences with which it was surrounded. They clung to 
their language, therefore, as a rampart which could shut out 
for a time the flood which was breaking upon them each day 
with increasing force. For what, then, do we blame them ? 
Not for their intense love to the Church, or their ardent desire 
to preserve it in its purity, nor for that sensitive apprehension 
which is always the offspring of affection ; not, in a word, that 
they were Lutherans indeed. If we blame these venerable 
men at all, it is that they were not Lutheran enough ; that is, 
that, with all their devotion to the Church, they had not 
that inspiring confidence which they should have had in the 
power of her principles, to triumph eventually over every ob- 
stacle. Would that they could have realized what we believe 
most firmly, (though part of it yet lies in the future,) that, after 
all the changes of national existence, and of language, all press- 
ure from the churches and the people around us, our holy faith 
shall come forth in all her purity and power, eventually to per- 
form, in the great drama in our western realm, a part as im- 
portant as that which she bore in her original glory in the 
history of the world. 

And having spoken thus freely in regard to a misapprehen- 
sion on one side of this question, we shall be equally candid in 
speaking the truth upon the other. 

It is evident that our American fathers clung to the German 
language from no idea that there was any connection between 



ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE CHURCH 211 

Lutheranism and that language as such — some mysterious 
coherence between its sounds and inflections, and the truths 
of our Church ; so that, in the very nature of the case, and by 
an essential necessity, the English language and Lutheranism 
could not harmonize together. It is fanaticism to attempt to 
narrow our great Church into an English sect or a German one. 
The Lutheran Church is neither English nor German ; and 
though both should cease to be the tongues of living men, she 
cannot pass away. The greatest works of her original literature, 
some of her symbols, part of her Church service and hymns, 
were in the Latin language ; and surely if she can live in a 
dead language, she can live in any living one. She has 
achieved some of her most glorious victories where other lan- 
guages are spoken. She sought at an early period to diffuse 
her principles among the Oriental Churches, and we will add, 
that she is destined, on these shores, in a language which her 
fathers knew not, to illustrate more gloriously, because in a 
more unfettered form, her true life and spirit, than she has 
done since the Eeformation. 

If the question may be mooted, How far shall we adopt the 
principles of the Reformation, and of our earlier Importance ot 
Church? — this admits of no discussion : Whether an acquaintance 

. with the Church. 

we should make ourselves thoroughly acquainted 
with those principles ; — for the rejection even of error, unless 
it result from an enlightened judgment, and a mature intel- 
ligent conviction, has no value whatever — nay, is in itself a 
worse error than any which it can possibly reject, for it rests 
on the foundation on which almost all moral falsehood has 
arisen. Let our ministry enter upon a profound study of 
the history and of the principles of our Church, and if the re- 
sult of a ripe judgment shall be any other than an increased 
devotion to the first, and an ardent embracing of the second, 
we shall feel ourselves bound to re-examine the grounds on 
which such an examination has led us to repose with the con- 
fidence of a child on that maternal bosom, where so many, 
whose names are bright on earth and in heaven, have rested 
their dying heads, and have experienced that what she taught 



212 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

them was sufficient, not only to overcome every trial of life, but 
every terror of the grave. 

First in place, and first in importance among those great 

documentary testimonies of the Church which came forth 

mu , , in the Eeformation, is the Augsburg Confession. 

The Augsburg ' o & 

Confession.* The man of the world should feel a deep interest 
in a document which bears to the whole cause of freedom as 
close a relation as the " Declaration of Independence " does 

* Works connected with the history of the Augsburg Confession, chronologi- 
cally arranged. 

1530, (and the works of contemporaries.) 

1. Luther: Werke (Walch.) xvi. 734-2145. Leipz. xx. 1-293. — Briefe : De 
Wette,iv. 1-180. vi. 112-128. — 2. Melanchthon : Epistolae etc. (Corp. Reform.) 
ii. 1-462. — 3. Nurenberg envoys: Briefe: Strobels Miscellan. lit. inhalt. ii. 
3-48. iii. 193-220. cf. Fikenscher. — 4. Pro. Relig. Christ, res gestae in Comit. 
Augustae Vinci, hab. 1530. in Cyprian, Beylage vii. Written by a Roman Cath- 
olic during the Diet, and published with the Imperial privilege. — 5. Bruce: : 
(Pontanus, Heinse) Verzeichniss der Handlung. herausgeg. von Foerstemann. 
Archiv. Halle 1831. (Apologia MS.), in refutation of the work just mentioned. 

— 6. Osiandri, Philippi Hassiae : Senat. Noremberg. Literae in Camerarii Vit. 
Melanchthonis, ed. Strobel. 407-414. — 7. Spalatin : Berichte, in Luther's Werke, 
Leipz. xx. 202-212. — 8. Spalatin : Annales Reformationis, published by Cyprian. 
Leipz. 1718. 131-289. — 9. Myconius : Historia Reformationis, from 1517-1542, 
published by Cyprian, 1718, p. 91, very brief. — 10. Camerarius : Vita Melanch- 
thonis (156G) Strobel. Noesselt, Hake 1777. 119-134. —1555. Sleidan : The Gen- 
eral History of the Reformation, Englished and continued by Bohun. London, 
1689. Fol. 127-140. — 1574. Wigand : Histor. de Augustana Confessione. Regi- 
omont. 1574, in Cyprian Beylag. x. — 1576. Chytraeus : Histor. der Aug. Conf. 
Rost. 1576. Frankfort 1580. — 1578. Do. Latin. Frcf. ad Moen. — 1582. Do. His- 
toire de la Conf. d'Auxpourg. mise en Francois par le Cop. Anvers. — 1576. 
Coelestinus : Historia Comitiorum. Frankf. on the Oder, 1576-77. — (Kirchner, 
Selnecker, and Chemnitz) : Solida ac vera Confess. August. Historia (against Wolf) 
translat. per Godfried. Lipsiae, 1685, 4to. — 1620. Sarpi: Histor. Concil. Tri- 
dent. London, 1620. 40-45. — 1630. Bakius,R. : Confessio Augustana triumphans: 
das istdie trefflich-schone Geschicht der Wahr. Ungeend. Augsburg Confession. 
Magdeb. 1630. — 1631. Saubert : Miracula Aug. Conf. Norimb. 4to. — 1646. Calo- 
vius : Criticus sacer vel Commentar. sup. August. Conf. Lips. 1646, 4to. p. 19-45. 

— 1654. Goebel: Predigten, 1-119. —1665, Carpzov : Isagoge. 2d ed. 1675. 90- 
107. — 1669. Arnold : Unparth. Kirchen u. Ketzer Historien. Schaffhausen, 1740. 3 
vols. Folio, i. 809. 1230. — 1681. Maimbourg : Historie der Lutheranisme. Paris, 
1680. 178-209. —1686. Du Pin : Bibliotheque. A new Ecclesiastical History of 
the sixteenth century. London, 1720. Fol. ch. xxii. — Seckendorf : Commen- 
tarius de Lutheranismo, 1686. Franc, and Lips. 1692. p. 150-209. ubers. Frick. — 
1714. Do. Reformations Geschichte von Roos, 1781. — 1705. Mulleri, J. J.: His- 
toria von. .. Protestation ... wie auch Augspurgische Confession, 1705, 4to. — 



THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 213 

to our own as Americans. The philosopher should examine 
what has formed the opinions and affected the destinies of 
millions of our race. To the Christian it presents itself as the 
greatest work, regarded in its historical relations, in which 
pure religion has been sustained by human hands. The theo- 
logian will find it a key to a whole era of fervent, yet profound 
thought, and the Lutheran, to whom an argument on its value, 
to him, must be presented, is beyoud the reach of argument. 

— 1706 Junker : Ehrenged'achtniss Lutheri. Lipsiae, 1706, 8vo. $30. — 1708. 
Loescher: Historia Motuum. 2d ed. 1723, 3 vols. 4to. i. 158-180. —1715. Hil- 
debrand : Historia Conciliorum. Helmstadii, 1715,311-314. — 1716. Fleuter's 
Historischer Katechismus. 3d ed. 1718. 339-365. — 1719. Cyprian : HilariaEvan- 
gelica. Gotha, 1719. Nachricht, von der Augspurg Confession, p. 551-555. — 1727. 
Buddeus : Be Colloq. Charitat. Secul. xvi. (Miscellan. Sacra) 1727. — 1730. 
Cyprian: Historia der Augsb. Conf. aus den Original- Acten — mit Beylagen. 
Gotha, 1730, 4to. Racknitz : Flores in Aug. Conf. 1730. — Pfaff : Lib. Symb. 
Introd. Histor. cap. iii. — Hoffmann,C. G. : Summar. Betrachtung. der auf Augsp. 
Reichstage, 1530. Actorum R-eligionis, 1730. — Salig: Vollstandige Historie der 
Aug. Conf. 3 vols. Halle, 1730, 4to. — Bo. Geschichte der Aug. Conf. aus Sleidan, 
Spalatin, Coelestinus, Chytraeus, Hortleder, Seckendorff u. Miiller. 1730. In the 
form of a dialogue. —1732. Walch, J. G. : Introd. in L. S. Jena, 1732. 157-482. 
— Hane : Historia Crit. A. C. — 1740. Moreri: Le Grand Bictionaire Historique, 
1740. 8 vols. Folio. Art. Confession d' Augsburg, and Biete. — 1745. Weismann : 
Introduc. in memorab. eccles. Histor. Sacr. Halae, 1745. i. 1498-1504. — 1751. 
Boerneri : Institut. Theolog. Symbolicae. 23-55. — 1761. Baumgarten : Erleu- 
terungen. 45. — 1765. Walchii, G. F. : Breviarium Theolog. Symb. Ec. Luth. 
Gdtting. 1765. 57-75. — 1775. Semleri : Apparatus ad Libr. Symb. 36. — 1781. 
Planck: Gesch. Protestant. Lehrbegriffs. Leipz. 1781. 8 vols. 8vo. iii. 1. 1-178. 

— 1791. Henke: Geschichte der Chr. Kirche. 4th ed. 1806. iii. 139-143. ix. 
(Vater) 94-97. — 1782. Weber.- Kritische Gesch. d. Aug. Conf. Franf. 1782. 2 
vols. 8vo. — 1804. Schrockh : Kirchengesch. seit der Reformat. Leipz. 1804. i. 
442-482. — 1811. Tittmann : Instit. Symbol. 80-90. —1826. Schopff : Symb. 
Biich. i. 24. — 1827. Hase: Libr. Symb. Lips. 1827. Prolegom iii-cxiv. — 1829. 
Rotermund: Geschichte des. . zu Augsb. ubergeb. Glaubensbek. nebst. . Lebens- 
nachrichten. Hannover, 1829. 8vo. — Cunow : Augsb. Confession, 1829. — Haan : 
Barstellung, 1829. — Banz : Bie Augspurg. Conf. nach ihrer Geschichte, etc. Jena, 

1829, 8vo. — Yelin : Versuch, 55-60. Hammerschmldt : Gesch. d. Augsb. Con- 
fess. 1829. von Ammon: Jubelfestbuch, 1829. — 1830. Schiebler: Reichstag zu 
Augsburg, 1830. — Spieker: Confessio Fidei, etc. Loeber. Faceus. — Pfaff: 
Geschichte des Reichst. zu Augs. u. des Augsb. Glaubensbek. Stuttg. 1830. — 
Tittmann : Aug. Conf. — Fikenscher : Geschichte des Reichst. zu Augsp. Nurnb. 

1830, 8vo. — Martens: Ueber die Symb. Biicher. Halberstadt. 1830. 8vo. 63-80. 

— 1831. Tittmann: Bie Evangelische Kirche im 1530 und 1830. Leipz. 1831.— 
Marheineke: (1831.) — 1833-1835. Foerstemann: Urkundenbuch. 2 vols. — 



214 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

It is our shield and our sword, our ensign and our arming, the 
constitution of our state, the life of our body, the germ of our 
being. It is the bond of our union throughout the world, and 
by it, and with it, our Church, as a distinct organization, 
must stand or fall. Her life began, indeed, before it, as the 
vital point of the embryo exists before the heart and brain are 
formed, but having once evoked the Confession into which her 
own life flowed — they live or perish together, as that embryo 
grows or dies, as the vital organ's expand in life or shrink in 
death. 

In the Symbolical books of the Lutheran Church, the first 
place, indeed, is justly held by those general Confessions, in 
which the pure Church has united, in every age since their 
formation, and in which, throughout the world, it now con- 
curs. These are the Apostles', the Mcseno-Constantinopolitan, 
and Athanasian creeds. She thus vindicates her true catho- 
licity and antiquity, and declares that the name of Lutheran 
does not define her essence, but simply refers to one grand fact 

1835. Bretschneider : Annales vitae Melanchthonis. a. 1530. (2d vol. of Corpus 
Reform.) — Cox: Life of Melanchthon. Boston, 1835. Ch. viii. — 1837. Kollner : 
Symb. d. Luth. Kirche. 150-226, — D'Aubigne : Reformation (1837.) — 1838. 
Audin : Histoire de la vie, etc., de Martin Luther. Paris, 1845. Chap. xxiv. 
xxv. Translated from the French. Philadelphia, 1841. Chap, xlvii. xlviii. Trans- 
lated by Turnbull. London, 1854. Vol. ii. 319-353. — 1839. Stang: M. Luther : 
Sein Leben u. Wirken. Stuttg. 1839. 600-687. — Ranke : Reformation (1839.) 
— 1840. Wessenberg : Kirchenversammlungen des 15ten und 16ten Jahrhun- 
derts. iii. 115. — 1841. Rudelbach : Histor. kritisch. Einleitung in die Augsb. 
Conf. Dresden, 1841. — 1842. Stebbing : History of the Church from the Diet 
of Augsburg, etc. London, 1842. i. 9-56. — Nettdecker: Die Hauptversuche 
zur Pacification der Ev. Prot. Kirche Deutschlands, von der Reformation bis 
auf unsere Tage. Leipz. 1846.57-62. — 1846. Michelet: Luther; translated by 
Smith. New York, 1846. p. 147. —1847. Francke : Lib. Symb. xiii-xx. — 1848. 
Muller : Symb. Biich. liv. Translated : The Book of Concord ; New Market, 
1851. xxxiii-xxxviii. 2d ed. 1854. 37-43. — 1849. Zimmermann : Luther's Leben 
(Ref. Schr. iv.) 471-481. — 1853. Sartorius : Beitr'age. 2d ed. 1-21. "The Glory 
of the Augsburg Confession." — 1854. Herzog's Real Encyclop. Hamb. 1854. i. 
603-610. — Matthes : Comparat. Symbolik. 61-67. — 1855. Ledderhose : Life of 
Melanchthon, translated by Krotel. Philadelphia, 1855. Chap. xi. — 1857. Hof- 
mann : Rud. Symbolik. 229-231. — Bindseil,H. E. : Corpus Reformatorum. xxvi. 
Pars. Prior.— 1866. Guerike : Handb. der Kirchen-Gesch. iii. § 176. (9th ed.) 
1866. —Winer: Darstellung. 3d ed. ii. 1866. — 1868. Kurtz: Lehrbuch d. K. C. 
I 132. 6. 7. 



ROMANISM AND ITS CREED. 215 

in her history, her restoration in the great Reformation. The 
most splendid phase of that portion of her annals is to be found 
in the Diet of Augsburg, and the " Good Confession " which 
she then " witnessed " before the mighty of the world. The 
city of Augsburg has not been wanting in historical associa- 
tions of high interest, but they are dim before its chief glory. 
Its ancient spires, on which the soft light of many a sinking 
sun had rested, were then illumined by a milder radiance, 
which shall never set. It slopes towards two considerable 
rivers, between which it lies embosomed, but never had that 
" river which makes glad the city of God," so poured through 
it its stream of life, as on that eventful day. Thrice since that 
period the thunder of artillery and the clash of arms have 
sounded around and within it — but it is our heroes whose 
glory still keeps its name fresh in the memories of men, and 
shall keep it when its palaces have crumbled into dust. 

An age of darkness is a creedless age ; corruption in doctrine 
works best when it is unfettered by an explicit Romanism and 
statement of that doctrine. Between the Athana- ,ts Creed ' 
sian Creed (probably about A. D. 434) and the sixteenth cen- 
tury, there is no new General Creed. Error loves ambiguities. 
In the contest with Borne the Reformers complained bitterly 
that she refused to make an explicit official statement of her 
doctrine. " Our opponents," says the Apology,* " do not be- 
stow the labor, that there may be among the people some cer- 
tain statement of the chief points of the ecclesiastical doc- 
trines." Just in proportion to the blind devotion of men to 
Popery were they reluctant to have its doctrines stated in an 
authorized form, and only under the compulsion of a public 
sentiment which was wrought by the Reformation, did the 
Church of Rome at length convene the Council of Trent. Its 
decisions were not completed and set forth until seventeen years 
after Luther's death, and thirty-three years after the Augsburg 
Confession. The proper date of the distinctive life of a partic- 
ular Church is furnished by her Creed. Tested by the General 
Creeds, the Evangelical Lutheran Church has the same claim 
as the Romish Church to be considered in unity with the early 

* 231, 43. 



216 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Church, — but as a particular Church, with a distinctive bond 
and token of doctrinal union, she is more than thirty years 
older than the Romish Church. Our Church has the oldest 
distinctive Creed now in use in any large division of Christen- 
dom. That Creed is the Confession of Augsburg. Could the 
Church have set forth and maintained such a Confession as 
that of Augsburg before the time over which the Dark Ages 
extended, those Dark Ages could not have come. There 
would have been no Eeformation, for none would have been 
needed. 

The mighty agitations caused by the restoration of divine 
truth by Luther and his great co-workers, had led 

The Augsburg J , b . \ 

confession : Pre- to attempts at harmonizing the conflicting ele- 
Hminariestopre- men ts, especially by action at the Diets of the Ern- 

paration of.* ? L J " 

pire. At the Diet of Worms (1521) Luther refuses 
to retract, and the Edict goes forth commanding his seizure 

* I. Official writings which prepared the way for the Augsburg Confession. 

1. The visitational articles : the Saxon visitation articles. 

a. The Latin Articles by Melanchthon, 1527. These are extremely rare, and 
are found in none of the older editions of Melanchthon or Luther. Given in the 
Corpus Reformatorum. Vol. xxvi. (1857.) 7. 

b. Melanchthon's Articles of Visitation in German, with Luther's Preface and 
some changes by him. 1528. (Last Edition 1538.) Given in Melanchthon's Werke 
(von Koethe) i. 83-130. Corpus Reformatorum xxvi. 49 — in Luther's Werke. 
Jena iv. 341. Leipzig, xix. 622. Walch. x. 1902. Erlangen xxiii. 3. These ar- 
ticles are not to be confounded with the Saxon visitation articles of 1592, which 
are given as an Appendix in various editions of the Symbolical Books (Muller, p. 
845.) 

2. The fifteen articles of Marburg. (October 3d, 1529.) cf. Feuerlin 42. These 
articles are given in Luther's Werke, Jena iv. 469. Leipzig xix, 530. Walch. xvii. 
2357. Erlangen 65, 88. Reformatorische Schriften von Zimmermann (1847) iii. 
420. In all these editions the fourteenth article (on Infant Baptism) has been 
omitted, so that they make only fourteen articles. Walch, however, (xxiii. 35,) 
gives the fourteenth article among the omissions supplied (compare do. Pref. p. 
6.) — In the Corpus Reformatorum. xxvi. 121-128. xiv.article given. — Zwingle's 
Werke (Schuler u. Schulthess) ii. iii. 44-58. xiv. article given. — Chytraei His- 
toria. 355. The fourteenth article omitted. — Muller J. J. Historie. p. 305-309. 
Fourteenth article given. — Rudelbach. Reformation Lutherthum und Union 
(Leipzig, 1839) Appendix 665-668. from Muller, of course with fourteenth ar- 
ticle. — They have been translated into Latin: Solida ac vera Confess. August. 
Histor. p. 128-131. — Zwinglii Opera (Schuler et Schulthess) iv: ii. 181. cf. Seck- 
endorf ii. 138. — In French in Le Cop's Chytrseus 463-466. — Into English by Dr. 
Lintner. Missionary, 1857. (Without the fourteenth article.) 



PRELIMINARIES TO PREPARATION. 217 

and the burning of his books ; at the Diet of Nuremberg (1522) 
Cheregati, the Papal Nuncio, demands the fulfilment of the 
Edict of Worms, and the assistance of all faithful friends of 
the Church against Luther. The first Diet at Spires (1526) 
had virtually annulled the Edict of Worms, by leaving its 

3. The xvii. articles of Schwabach, 1529, (miscalled frequently the Torgau 
articles.) For the special Bibliography of these articles, cf. Walch. Bib. Theo- 
log. Select, i. 330, and Introd. in L. S. 163. — Feuerlin 78, cf. Layritii : DeArti- 
culis Suobacens. Wittenb. 1719. 4to. — Weber, Kritisch. Gesch. i. 13. K. Pfaff. 
i. 94. Evangelical Review, i. 246-249 (which presents the confused view of Walch. 
Introd. inL. S., and of the older writers.) 

!■ In June 1528, the first convention was held in Schwabach. The xxiii. articles 
of that convention are not to be confounded, as they have been, with the xvii. ar- 
ticles of the second convention. 

2 - The second convention at Schwabach was fixed for October 16th, 1529. 

a. At this convention the xvii. articles were presented. 

They are given in Luther's Werke, Jena v. 14. Leipzig xx. 1-3. Walch xxi. 
681, 778. Erlangen xxiv. 322. — Corpus Reformatorum xxvi. 151-160. — Chy- 
traeus, 22-26, Muller, Historie 442-448. Cyprian, Beylag. 159, most critically 
in Weber, Krit. Geschicht. Beylagen i. and Corp. Reform. 

They have been translated into Latin: Coelestinus i. 25. Pfaff, Lib. Symb. 
Adpend. 3. — French: Le Cop's Chytraeus, p. 19. — English: Evangelical Re- 
view, ii. 78-84. (With the old title, " Articles of Torgau.") 

b. Reply of Wimpina, Mensing, etc., to these articles, 1530. This is given in 
Luther's Werke, Jena v. 16. Leipz. xx. 3-8. 

Walch. xvi. 766. 
Cf. Seckendorf, lib. ii. 152. Cyprian 52. Evangelical Review, ii. 83. 

c. Luther's answer to the outcry of the Papists on the xvii. articles, given in 
Luther's Werke, Leipz. xx. 8. 

" " Walch, xvi. 778. 

" " Erlangen, 24, 319. 

Cyprian, Beyl. 159. 

4. The Articles of Torgau, 1530. (confounded frequently with the articles of 
Schwabach.) — Cf. Seckendorf, ii. 151. Muller 441. Cyprian 52, who suppose 
what we have called the "Articles of Swabach" to be in fact the articles sent 
to Torgau. — Cf. Salig: i. 158. Walch: Luther's Werke xvi. 681, who suppose 
the articles of Schwabach to have been somewhat changed and sent to Torgau. — 
Cf. Weber: Krit. Gesch. i. 16-19. Foerstemann: Urkundenbuch i. 40-41. — Koll- 
ner: Symbolik. i. 156-168. — Corpus Reformator. xxvi. 161-170, who prove the 
Articles of Swabach and those of Torgau to be totally distinct. The Articles 
of Torgau, truly entitled to that name, bear, in a large degree, to the second 
part of the Augsburg Confession, the relation which the Schwabach Articles bear 
to the first part. — The Articles of Torgau were discovered by Foerstemann (1833) 
and given to the world by him, in his Urkundenbuch, i. 66-84. — Given also in 
Corpus Reformatorum, xxvi. 171-200. 



218 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

execution to the unforced action of the different Estates, 
and it promised the speedy convocation of a General Coun- 
cil, or at least of a National Assembly. The second Diet 
at Spires (1529) quenched the hopes inspired by this earlier 
action. It decreed that the Edict of Worms should be 
strictly enforced where it had already been received ; the 
celebration of the Eomish Mass protected, and the preach- 
ers bound to confine themselves to the doctrine of the 
Eomish Church in their teachings. The Protest of the 
Evangelical Princes against this decision, originated the name 
Protestants. 

The Protestant Princes made their appeal to a free General 
Council. Charles V,, after vainly endeavoring to obtain the 
consent of the Pope to the convocation of a General Council, 
summoned the Diet at Augsburg, promising to appear in per- 
son, and to give a gracious hearing to the whole question, 
so that the " one only Christian truth might be maintained, 
that all might be subjects and soldiers of the one Christ, and 
live in the fellowship and unity of one Church." To this end 
the Emperor directed the friends of the Evangelical faith to 
prepare, for presentation to the Diet, a statement on the points 
of division. 

In consequence of this order of the Emperor, the Elector of 
Saxony, who was the leader of the Evangelical Princes, directed 
Luther, in conjunction with the other theologians at Witten- 
berg, to draw up a summary of doctrine, and a statement of 
the abuses to be corrected. The statement drawn up in conse- 
quence of this, had, as its groundwork, Articles which were 
already prepared ; and as the Augsburg Confession is the ripest 
result of a series of labors, in which this was one, and as much 
confusion of statement exists on the relations of these labors, 
it may be useful to give the main points in chronological 
order. 

1. 1529. October 1, 2, 3. The Conference at Marburg took 
place between Luther and the Saxon divines upon the one side, 
and Zwingle and the Swiss divines on the other. Luther, in 
conjunction with others of our great theologians, prepared the 
XV. Marburg Articles, October, 1529. These Articles were 



PRELIMINARIES TO PREPARATION. 219 

meant to show on what points the Lutherans and Zwinglians 
agreed, and also to state the point on which they did not agree, 
and as a fair statement of the points, disputed and undisputed, 
were signed by all the theologians of both parties. 

2. 1529. Oct. 16. On the basis of these XV. Articles were 
prepared, by Luther, with the advice and assistance of the 
other theologians, the XVII. Articles of Schwabach, so called 
from the place at which they were presented. 

3. 1529. Nov. 29. From the presentation of these XVII. 
Articles at Smalcald, they are sometimes called the Smalcald 
Articles. 

4. 1530. March 20. These XVII. Articles of Luther re- 
vised were sent to Torgau, and were long called the Torgau 
Articles, though they are in fact the revised Articles of Schwa- 
bach. These Articles are mainly doctrinal. 

5. March 20. In addition to these, a special writing, of 
which Luther was the chief author, in conjunction with Me- 
]anchthon y Jonas, and Bugenhagen, was prepared by direction 
of the Elector, and sent to Torgau. These articles are on the 
abuses,* and are the Torgau Articles proper. 

6. The XVII. doctrinal articles of Schwabach formed the basis 
of the doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession ; the Ar- 
ticles of Torgau are the basis of its articles on abuses, and both 
these are mainly from the hand of Luther. 

In six instances, the very numbers of the Schwabach Ar- 
ticles correspond with those of the Augsburg Confession. 
They coincide throughout, not only in doctrine, but in a vast 
number of cases word for word, the Augsburg Confession being 
a mere transcript, in these cases, of the Schwabach Articles. 
The differences are either merely stylistic, or are made neces- 
sary by the larger object and compass of the Augsburg Con- 
fession ; but so thoroughly do the Schwabach Articles condi- 
tion and shape every part of it, as to give it even the peculiarity 
of phraseology characteristic of Luther. 

To a large extent, therefore, Melanchthon's work is but an 
elaboration of Luther's, and to a large extent it is not an 

* For the latest and amplest results of historical investigation of these points, 
see Corpus Reformat., vol. xxvi. (1858,) cols. 97-199. 



220 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

elaboration, but a reproduction. To Luther belong the doc- 
trinal power of the Confession, its inmost life and spirit, and 
to Melanchthon its matchless form. Both are in some sense its 
authors, but the most essential elements of it are due to Luther, 
who is by pre-eminence its author, as Melanchthon is its com- 
poser. If the authorship of the Confession should be claimed 
for Melanchthon to the exclusion of Luther, it would open the 
second great Reformer to the charge of the most unscrupulous 
its Authorship: plagiarism. Even had Luther, however, had no 
Luther's relations direct share in the Augsburg Confession, the asser- 
tion would be too sweeping that he was in no sense 
its author. Not only as great leading minds are in some sense 
the authors of all works that have germinated directly from 
their thoughts, but in a peculiar sense Luther was the author 
of Melanchthon's theological life ; he was, as Melanchthon loved 
to call him, "his most dear father." All the earliest and 
purest theology of Melanchthon is largely but a repetition, in 
his own graceful way, of Luther's thoughts ; and the Augs- 

* Collected works, having an importance in the Interpretation and History of 
the Augsburg Confession. 

Luthek,. Opera Omnia (Latin) (1556-58.) Jena 1579-83. 4 Tom. Folio. — In 
prynum Librum Mose Enarrationes. 1555. Fol. — Schriften und Werke (Boerner 
u. Pfeiffer.) Leipz. 1729-34. 22 vols. Folio. Greiff's Register. 1740. Fol. — 
Siimmtliche Werke. (Walch) Halle 1740-52. 24 vols. 4to. — Sammtliche Werke. 
(Ammon, Erlsperger, Irmescher, Plochmann) Erlangen, 1826-1857. 65 vols. 
(German) and 2 vols. Register. Invaluable for critical purposes. — Geist, oder 
Concordanz der Ansichten, etc. Darmstadt, 1827-31. 4 vols. — Briefe, Sendschrei- 
ben u. Bedenken (De Wette), Berlin, 1826-56. 6 vols. (The last edited by Seide- 
mann.) — Reformatorische Schriften, in Chronologischer Folge. (Zimmermann) 
Darmstadt, 1846-49. 4 vols. 8vo. — (Lutherus Redivivus, oder des furnehmsten 
Lehrers der Augspurg. Confess. D. M. Luther's hinterlassene Schriftliche Erklar- 
ungen . . . was der Augspurg. Confess, eigentliche Meinung u. Verstandt in alien 
Articuln allezeit gewesen. (Seidel) Halle 1697.) — Melanchthon. Opera Omnia 
(Peucer.) Wittenb. 1562-64. 4 vols. Fol. — Opera quae Mipersunt omnia. (Bret- 
schneider) Halle 1834-1856. 28 vols. 4to. Indispensable to the student of the 
Augsburg Confession, or of the Reformation in general. The Loci Theologici 
especially, are edited with a completeness unparalleled in the Bibliography of 
Dogmatics. — Melanchthon. Corpus Doctrinae Christianae, das ist, Gantze Summa 
der rechten Christlichen Lehre, etc. Leipzig, 1560. Fol. — Corpus Doctrinae 
Christianae quae est summa orthodoxi et Catholici Dogmatis. Lipsiae, 1563. 
Folio. — Zwinglii Huldr. Opera, Completa Editio prima cur. Schulero et Schul- 
thessio. Zurich 1829-1842. 8 vols. 8vo. 



ABSENCE OF LUTHER FROM AUGSBURG. 221 

burg Confession is in its inmost texture the theology of the 
New Testament as Luther believed it. Melanchthon had no 
creativeness of mind, and but for Luther, his name would 
hardly have taken a place among great theologians. He was 
a sculptor who cut with matchless grace after the model of the 
master. 

For the absence of Luther from Augsburg, the reasons con- 
stantly assigned in history are obviously the real ones. Luther 
was not only under the Papal excommunication, Ahsence of Lu _ 
but he was an outlaw under the imperial ban. In ther from Au gs - 
the rescript of the Emperor he was styled " the burg ' 
evil fiend in human form," " the fool," and " the blasphemer." 
His person would have been legally subject to seizure. The 
Diet at Spires (1529) had repeated the Decree of Worms. The 
Elector would have looked like a plotter of treason had Luther 
been thrust by him before the Emperor, and with the intense 
hatred cherished by the Papistical party toward Luther, he 
would not have been permitted to leave Augsburg alive. The 
Elector was so thoroughly anxious to have Luther with him, 
that at first he allowed his wishes to obscure his judgment, — 
he attached such importance to the mild language of Charles 
V., that he allowed himself to hope, yet, as his letter of March 
14th shows, rather feebly, that even Luther might be permit- 
ted to appear. Luther left "Wittenberg on the assumption 
that he perhaps might be permitted to come to Augsburg. 
But a safe-conduct was denied him. Had it been desired by 
the Elector to have Luther out of the way, it would have been 
far easier to the Elector, and pleasanter to Luther, to have kept 
him at Wittenberg. 

That Luther came to Coburg, is proof of the ardent desire 
to have his counsel and co-operation ; that he stopped there, 
shows the greatness of the peril that would have attended his 
going farther. But Luther's safety was not merely provided 
for by his detention here, but by placing him in the old castle 
of the Duke of Coburg, which occupies a commanding height, 
more than five hundred feet above the town, and which is so 
well fortified by nature and art, that during the Thirty Years' 
War, Wallenstein besieged it in vain. The arrangements 



222 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

were planned by loving friends for his safety : Luther perfectly 
understood the character and object of the arrangements, before 
they were made, while they were in progress, and after all was 
over. Thus, April 2d, writing before his journey, he says : "I 
am going with the Prince, as far as Coburg, and Melanchthon 
and Jonas with us, until it is known what will be attempted 
at Augsburg." In another letter of same date: "I am not 
summoned to go „to Augsburg, but for certain reasons, I only 
accompany the Prince on his journey through his own domin- 
ions." June 1, he writes: "I am waiting on the borders of 
Saxony, midway between Wittenberg and Augsburg, for it 
was not safe to take me to Augsburg." 

The expressions of impatience which we find in his letters 
during his stay at Coburg, only show that in the ardor of his 
great soul, in moments of intense excitement, the reasons for 
his detention at the castle, which had commended themselves 
to his cooler judgment, seemed reasons no longer — death 
seemed nothing — he would gladly face it as he had faced it 
before, only to be in body where he was already in heart. " I 
burn," he says, " to come, though uncommanded and unin- 
vited." His seeming impatience, his agony, his desire to hear 
often, his refusal for the moment to listen to any excuses, were 
all inevitable with such a spirit as Luther's under the cir- 
cumstances ; yet for places some days' journey apart, in those 
troublous times, of imperfect communication, with special 
couriers carrying all the letters, there was an extraordinary 
amount of correspondence. We have about seventy letters of 
Luther written to Augsburg during the Diet, and we know of 
thirty -two written by Melanchthon to Luther, and of thirty- 
nine written by Luther to Melanchthon in the five months of 
correspondence, during the Diet, or connected with it in the 
time preceding.* 

Luther and Melanchthon went in company to Coburg, and at 
Coburg; the " Exordium " of the Confession was 

Correspondence ° 

with Luther. Me- written. At Augsburg, Melanchthon, as was his 

oTMay 4th. LetteM wont > elaborated it to a yet higher finish. May 

4, he writes to Luther : " I have made the exor- 

* Luther's Letters, De Wette's ed., iii. iv. 



THE ELECTOR'S LETTERS. 223 

diimi of our Apology somewhat more finished in style (reto- 
rikoteron) than I wrote it at Coburg." Speaking of his work 
he says : "In a short time, I myself will bring it, or if the 
Prince will not permit me to come, I will send it." 

By the Apology or Defence is meant the Confession, which 
was originally designed to be in the main a defence of the 
Evangelical (Lutheran) Confessors, especially in regard to their 
practical application of their principles in the correction of 
abuses. The second part was the one which at the time of the 
preparation of the Confession was regarded as the more difficult, 
and for the immediate objects contemplated, the more import- 
ant. The articles of faith were designed as a preparation for 
the second part, and the judgment of Eoerstemann and others 
that by the " Exordium," Melanchthon meant not the Preface, 
which there seems to be evidence was written in German by 
Briick, and translated into Latin by Jonas, " but the whole 
first part of the Confession, is not without much to render it 
probable." 

If we take Melanchthon's language, in his letter of May 5, 
grammatically, it seems to settle it, that the Exordium was the 
whole first part, for it is inconceivable that he would desire to 
come all the way to Coburg to show Luther merely the Pre- 
face, more especially as we know that the Confession itself was 
nearly finished at the time. In a letter of the same date, (May 
4th,) to Yiet Dietrich, who was with Luther, he says : " I will 
shortly run over to you, that I may bring to the Doctor 
(Luther) the Apology which is to be offered to the Emperor, 
that he (Luther) may examine it." 

For very obvious reasons, Melanchthon could not be spared 
from Augsburg at this time even for an hour, to The Elector - s 
say nothing of the hazards which might have been Letters of May 
incurred by the journey, which his great anxiety 
for a personal conference with Luther inclined him to make. 
But on May 11th, the Elector sent to Luther the Confession, 
with a letter, in which he speaks of it as meant to be a careful 
revision of those very articles of which Luther was the main 
author. He says to Luther (Augsburg, May 11th) : " As you 



224 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

and our other theologians at "Wittenberg, have brought into 
summary statement the articles of religion about which there 
is dispute, it is our wish to let you know that Melanchthon has 
further revised the same, and reduced them to a form, which 
we hereby send you." " And it is our desire that you would 
further revise the same, and give them a thorough examination, 
and at the same time (daneben) you would also write how you 
like it, or what you think proper to add about it or to it, and 
in order that, on his Majesty's arrival, which is looked for in a 
short time, we may be ready, send back the same carefully 
secured and sealed, without delay, to this place, by the letter- 
carrier who takes this." 

Luther had been the chief laborer in the articles of which 
the Elector declared the Confession to be but a revision and re- 
ducing to shape — there could be little room for large changes, 
and as the Emperor was expected speedily, the time was too 
pressing to allow of elaborate discussions, which were indeed 
unneeded where all were so absolute a unit in faith as our Con- 
fessors were. That margin would have been narrow, and that 
time short, indeed, on which and in which Luther could not 
have written enough to kill any Confession which tampered 
with the truth. 

The Elector's whole letter expressly assigns the natural and 
cogent reason, that Luther's judgment might be needed at 
once, in consequence of the expected advent of the Emperor, a 
point which Melanchthon's letter of the same date also urges. 
The haste is evidence of the anxiety to have Luther's opinion 
and approval, as a sine qua non. 

The Diet had been summoned for April 8th. It was soon 
after postponed to the 1st of May, and at this later date, had 
it not been for the delay of the Emperor in appearing, the arti- 
cles of Luther, on which the Confession was afterwards based, 
would themselves have been offered. As it was, it was need- 
ful to be ready at any hour for the approach of Charles. The 
letter of the Elector implies that the original of the Confession 
was sent to Luther. Great care was taken to prevent copies 
from being multiplied, as the enemies were eager to see it. 
Even on June 25th, the day of its presentation, the Latin Con- 



MELANCHTHON'S LETTER. 225 

fession, in Melanchthon's own handwriting, was given to the 
Emperor. 

With this letter of the Elector was sent a letter from 
Melanchthon addressed "to Martin Luther, his Me i anC hthon's 
most dear father." In it he says: " Our Apology better of May 
is sent to you, although it is more properly a Con- 
fession, for the Emperor will have no time for protracted dis- 
cussion. Nevertheless, I have said those things which 1 
thought most profitable or fitting. With this design I have 
embraced nearly all the articles of faith, for Eck has put forth 
the most diabolical slanders against us, to which I wished to 
oppose a remedy. I request you, in accordance with your own 
spirit, to decide concerning the whole writing [Pro tuo spiritu 
de toto scripto statues.) A question is referred to you, to which 
I greatly desire an answer from you. What if the Emperor 
. . should prohibit our ministers from preaching at Augsburg ? 
I have answered that we should yield to the wish of the Em- 
peror, in whose city we are guests. But our old man is diffi- 
cult to soften." (The " old man " is either the Elector John, 
so called to distinguish him from his son, John Frederick, or 
the old Chancellor Briick.) " Whatever therefore you think, 
I beg that you will write it in German on separate paper." 

What Luther was to write was his judgment both as to the 
Confession and the question about preaching, and the " sepa- 
rate paper," on which he was particularly requested to write, 
must mean separate from that which held the Confession. One 
probable reason why Luther was so particularly requested not, 
as was very much his wont, to write upon the margin, was, 
that this original draft of the Confession might have been 
needed for presentation to the Emperor. The original of Lu- 
ther's replies to the Elector on both points (for to the Elector 
and not to Melanchthon they were to be made, and were made,) 
still remains. Both are together — neither is on the margin 
of anything, but both are written just as Melanchthon specially 
requested, " in German," and on " separate paper." * It shows 

* Coelestinus, i., p. 40. Luther's Epistol. supplem. Buddei, 93. Salig. Hist. d. 
Aug. Conf., i. 169. Cyprian, Beylage xiv. Ex Autographo. Luther's Briefe: De 
Wette (Lett. 1213) himself compared the original in the Weimar Archives. 
15 



226 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the intensest desire to have the assurance doubly sure of Lu- 
ther's concurrence, that under all the pressure of haste, the 
original of the Confession was sent him. 

That the highest importance was attached to Luther's judg- 
ment on this form of the Confession, is furthermore proved hy 
the fact that after the Confession was despatched, (May 11,) 
everything was suspended at Augsburg, till he should he heard 
from. "On the 16th of May, the Elector indicated to the 
other States, that the Confession was ready, but was not entirely 
closed up, hut had been sent to Luther for examination." 
Shortly after, Luther's reply of May 15, heartily indorsing the 
Confession, without the change of a word, was received at 
Augsburg.* 

It is called "form of Confession," in the Elector's letter to 
Luther, because the matter of the Confession had been prepared 
by Luther himself. Melanchthon's work was but to revise that 
matter, and give it " form," which revised form was to be sub- 
jected to the examination of all the Lutheran authorities and 
divines at Augsburg, and especially to Luther. 

As to the articles of faith, and the abuses to be corrected, 
the matter of the Confession was already finished and furnished. 
— much of it direct from Luther's hand, and all of it with his 
co-operation and approval. It was only as to the " form," the 
selection among various abuses, the greater or less amplitude 
of treatment, that all the questions lay. The " form of Con- 
fession " sent on May 11th was the Augsburg Confession, sub- 
stantially identical with it as a whole, and, in all that is really 
essential to it, verbally identical. We have copies of it so 
nearly at the stage at which it then was as to know that this 
is the case. Melanchthon's letter expressly declares that nearly 
all the articles of faith had been treated, and the Augsburg 
Confession, in its most finished shape, only professes to give 
" about the sum of the doctrines held by us." 

But we need not rest in inferences, however strong, in regard 
to this matter. We have direct evidence from Melanchthon 
himself, which will be produced, that Luther did decide, before 
its presentation, upon what, in Melanchthon's judgment, was 

* Corpus Reform., No. 700. Kollner, pp. 171, 175. 



MELANCHTHON'S LETTER. 227 

the Augsburg Confession itself. His words prove that the 
changes which Luther did not see were purely those of niceties 
of style, or of a more ample elaboration of a very few points, 
mainly on the abuses ; in fact, that Luther's approval had been 
given to the Confession, and that without it the Confession 
never would have been presented. 

The Elector's letter of May 11th was answered by Luther, 
w r ho heartily indorsed the Confession sent him, without the 
change of a word. Nothing was taken out, nothing w T as added, 
nothing was altered. He speaks admiringly, not reprovingly, 
of the moderation of its style, and confesses that it had a gen- 
tleness of manner of which he was not master. 

As the Emperor still lingered, Melanchthon used the time to 
improve, here and there, the external form of the Confession. 
He loved the most exquisite accuracy and delicacy of phrase, 
and never ceased filing on his work. What topics should be 
handled under the head of abuses, was in the main perfectly 
understood, and agreed upon between him and Luther. The 
draft of the discussion of them was largely from Luther's 
hand, and all of it was indorsed by him. 

The main matters were entirely settled, the principles were 
fixed, and the questions which arose were those of style, of 
selection of topics, of the mode of treating them, or of expedi- 
ency, in which the faith was not involved. In regard to this, 
Luther speedily hears again from his son in the Gospel. 

May 22d, Melanchthon wrote to Luther:* " In the Apol- 
ogy, we daily change many things ; the article on Yows, as it 
was more meagre than it should be, I have re- MeiancMhon's 
moved, and supplied its place with a discussion a Letter of May 22. 
little more full, on the same point. I am now treating of the 
power of the keys also. I wish you would run over the 
Articles of Faith ; if you think there is no defect in them, we 
will treat of the other points as we best may (utcunque.) For 
they are to be changed from time to time, and adapted to the 
circumstances." In the same letter he begs Luther to write to 
George, Duke of Saxony, because his letter would carry deci- 
sive weight with him : " there is need of your letters." 

* Corpus Reformatorum, ii. Epist., No. 680. 



228 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

This letter shows : 

1. That Melanchthon desired Luther to know all that he 
was doing. 

2. That the Articles of Faith were finished, and that the 
changes were confined to the Articles on Abuses. 

3. That in the discussions on Abuses, there were many ques- 
tions which would have to be decided as the occasions, in the 
providence of God, would determine them. 

From three to four days seems to have been the ordinary 
time of the letter-carrier between Augsburg and Coburg. The 
Elector sent the Confession May 11th. Luther replied May 
15th, probably the very day he received it ; his reply probably 
reached Augsburg May 20th, and two days after, Melanchthon 
sends him the Articles of Faith, with the elaboration which 
had taken place in the interval, and informs him of what he 
had been doing, and designs to do. 

In part, on the assumption that Luther was not permitted 
to receive this letter, a theory was built by Riickert, a Ration- 
alistic writer of Germany, that the Augsburg Confession was 
meant to be a compromise with Rome, and that it was feared 
that if Luther were not kept in the dark he would spoil the 
scheme. But even if Luther did not receive Melanchthon's 
letter and the Articles of May 22d, we deny that the rational 
solution would be that they were fraudulently held back by 
the friends of the Confession at Augsburg. Grant that Lu- 
ther never received them. What then ? The retention of them 
w r ould have been an act of flagrant immorality ; it was need- 
less, and foolish, and hazardous ; it is in conflict with the per- 
sonal character of the great princes and leaders, political and 
theological, who were as little disposed as Luther, to compro- 
mise any principle with Rome. The Elector and Br'uck were 
on some points less disposed to be yielding than Luther. The 
theory is contradicted by the great body of facts, which show 
that Luther, though absent in body, was the controlling spirit 
at Augsburg. It is contradicted by the Confession itself, 
which is a presentation, calm in manner, but mighty in the 
matter, in which it overthrows Popery from the very founda- 
tion. It is contradicted by the fierce replies of the Papists in 



MELANCHTHON'S LETTER. 229 

the Council, by the assaults of Popery upon it through all time, 
by the decrees of the Council of Trent, whose main polemical 
reference is to it. It is contradicted by the enthusiastic admi- 
ration which Luther felt, and expressed again and again, for 
the Confession. 

The millions of our purified churches have justly regarded 
it for ages as the great bulwark against Rome, and the judg- 
ment of the whole Protestant world has been a unit as to 
its fundamentally Evangelical and Scriptural character over 
against Rome. Its greatest defenders have been the most able 
assailants of Popery. 

It might as well be assumed that the Bible is a compromise 
with the Devil, and that the Holy Ghost was excluded from 
aiding in its production, lest he should embarrass the proceed- 
ings, as that the Augsburg Confession is, or was meant to be, 
a compromise with Popery, and that Luther was consequently 
prevented from having a share in producing it. 

If the letter really never reached Luther, the theory that it 
was fraudulently kept at Augsburg by the friends of the Con- 
fession, that the whole thing was one of the meanest, and at 
the same time, most useless crimes ever committed, is so ex- 
treme, involves such base wickedness on the part of its perpe- 
trators, that nothing but the strongest evidences or the most 
overwhelming presumptions justify a man in thinking such an 
explanation possible. 

If this letter, or others, never reached Luther, it is to be 
attributed either to the imperfect mode of transmission, in 
which letters were lost, miscarried, or destroyed by careless or 
fraudulent carriers, of which bitter complaints constantly occur 
in the letters of Luther and others at that time, or if there 
were any steps taken to prevent Luther's letters reaching him, 
these steps would be taken by the Romanists, who were now 
gathering in increasing force at Augsburg. The difficulty in 
the wa}^ of communicating with Luther increased, as his being 
at Coburg was kept secret from his enemies, and at his request, 
in a letter which we shall quote, was kept secret in June even 
from the body of his friends. 

So much for the theory, granting its fact for argument's sake. 



230 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

But the fact is that Luther did receive Melauchthon's letter 
of the 22d. The letter was not lost, but appears in all the 
editions of Melauchthon's letters, entire,* and in the earliest 
histories of the Augsburg Confession, without a hint, from the 
beginning up to Rtickert's time, that it had not been received. 
When we turn to Luther's letters, complaining of the silence 
of his friends, we find no evidence that Melanchthon's letter 
had not beeu received. They create, on the contrary, the 
strongest presumption that it had been received. As it was 
sent at once, (Melanchthon says that he had hired a letter-car- 
rier before he began the letter,) it would reach Luther about 
May 25th. 

Luther's letter of June 1st to Jacob Probst, in Bremen, f 
shows that he had intelligence of the most recent date from 
Augsburg, that he was sharing in the cares and responsibilities 
of what was then passing : " Here, also, I am occupied with 
business for God, and the burden of the whole empire rests 
upon us." He then uses, in part, the very language of Melanch- 
thon's letter of May 22d, as to the time when the Emperor 
would be at Augsburg4 He quotes from that letter Melanch- 
thon's very words in regard to Mercurinus : § " He would have 
nothing to do with violent councils — that it had appeared at 
Worms what violent councils would do. He desired the 
affairs of the Church to be peacefully arranged." He closes 
his account of things at Augsburg by saying : " You have an 
account of matters now as they are to-day at Augsburg" (hodie 
habet.) 

Luther did receive Melanchthon's letter of the 22d, and on 
June 1st quotes largely from it. 

Up to this time, too, there is no complaint of suspension of 

* In the original Latin, in Corpus Reform., ii., No. 698. In German, in Walch's 
Luther's Werke, xvi., No. 927. 

f De Wette's Briefe, No. 1217. Buddeus, Suppl., No. 123. 

% Melanchthon : vix ante Pentecosten. Luther: forte ad Pentecosten. 

$Melanc. : Nolle se violentis consiliis interesse. Luth. : Se nolle interesse 
violentis consiliis. Mel. : Wormatise apparuisse, quam nihil proficiant violenta 
consilia. Luth. : Wormatiae vidisset, quid efficerent violenta consilia. Mel. : 
Vir suminus Mercurinus. Luth. : Summus Mercurinus. Mel. : Res ecclesias- 
ticse rite constituerentur. Luth. : Ecclesige res cum pace constitui. 



MELANCHTHON'S LETTER. 231 

communication, with Augsburg, but, on the contrary, he re- 
ports up to the day on which he writes. 

On June 2d, Luther writes to Melanchthon.* There is no 
word of complaint in this letter of any silence on the part of 
Melanchthon, or of others at Augsburg. He complains that 
he is so overrun with visitors as to be compelled to leave Co- 
burg for a day, to create the impression that he is no longer 
there. " I beg of you, and the others with you, in future to 
speak and write so that no one will seek me here any longer ; 
for I wish to remain concealed, and to have you, at the same 
time, to keep me concealed, both in your words and letters." 
He then speaks of the report that the Emperor would not come 
to Augsburg at all, and of his deep anxiety. This letter shows 
what was the subject of Luther's intense solicitude on the fol- 
lowing days. A thousand alarming rumors reached him, and 
he was anxious to hear, by every possible opportunity, from 
Augsburg ; at the same time, wishing to be concealed, he had 
requested Melanchthon and his other friends to avoid sending 
letters in a way that would make it known that he was at Co- 
burg. These two facts help to solve Luther's great solicitude 
to hear news, and also, in part, as we have said, to account for 
the irregularity in his receiving letters, as they would, in 
accordance with his direction of June 2d, be sent with secrecy. 
In Luther's letter of June 5th, he complains not that there 
had been a long delay, but that they did not write by every 
opportunity. These were sometimes quite frequent. In some 
cases more than one opportunity occurred in a day. ISTone of 
Luther's anxiety is about the Confession. In Luther's letter 
to Melanchthon, of June 7th, he complains of the silence of his 
friends at Augsburg, but in a playful tone. In his letter of 
June 19th, to Cordatus,f he says: "We have no news from 
Augsburg. Our friends at Augsburg write us none." In his 
letter to G-abriel Zwilling,;): June 19th, he says : " You will, 
perhaps, get the news from Bernhard, for our friends have not 

* De Wette, Briefe, No. 1219. Buddeus, No. 124. In German, Walch xvi., p. 
2826. 

f De Wette, Briefe, No. 1229. Buddeus, No. 125. Walch xvi. 2833. 
% De Wette, No. 1230. Buddeus, No. 126. Walch xvi. 2836. 



232 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

answered our letters through the whole month," (June.) La- 
ther's letter of June 20th, to Justus Jonas,* gives direct evi- 
dence how long the interruption of correspondence continued : 
" Your letters have come at last, my Jonas, after we were well 
fretted for three whole weeks with your silence." The period, 
therefore, does not embrace May 2 2d, but only the first three 
weeks in June. There is no reason whatever, therefore, for 
doubting that Luther received Melanchthon's letter, and the 
Articles of Faith of May 22d. On June 1st, the Elector, John, 
sent Luther secret advices of an important proposition which 
he had received from the Emperor. If, therefore, there were 
any furtive and dishonorable course pursued toward Luther, 
the causes and results of it must, in some special manner, be 
found between the Elector's secret advices of June 1st and the 
letter to Luther from Augsburg, June 15th ; but there is 
nothing in the course of events to suggest any such reason, 
even if there were a fact which seemed to require something of 
the sort — bat there is no such fact. On the contrary, we shall 
produce a fact which will sweep away all necessity for any fur- 
ther discussion of this point. 

We have seen, 1st, that the Confession was sent by the 
Elector, May 11th, to Luther, at Coburg, for his written judg- 
ment upon it, in its first form. 

2d. That it was sent again, on the 22d of the same month, 
by Melanchthon, and was received by Luther, in its second 
form. 

3d. We shall now show that it was sent as nearly as possible 
in its complete shape to Luther, for a third time, before it was 
delivered, and was approved by him in what may probably be 
called its final form. 

The evidence to which we shall appeal is that of Melanch- 
thon himself. It is first found in the Preface to his Body of 
Christian Doctrine, (Corpus Doctrinse,) 1560, and also in the 
Preface to the first volame of the Wittenberg edition of his 
works in folio. It is reprinted in the Corpus Keformatorum, 
vol. ix.,Eo. 6932. lie there says, in giving a history of the 
Augsburg Confession : 

* De Wette, No. 1232. Buddeus, No. 127. 



MELANCHTHON'S LETTER. 233 

1. "I brought together the principal points of the Confes- 
sion, embracing pretty nearly the sum of the doctrine of our 
Churches." 

II. " I assumed nothing to myself, for in the presence of the 
Princes and other officials, and of the preachers, it was discussed 
and determined upon in regular course, sentence by sentence." 

III. " The complete form of the Confession was subsequently 
{delude) sent to Luther, who wrote to the Princes that he had 
read the Confession and approved it. That these things were 
so done, the Princes, and other honest and learned men, yet 
living, well remember." 

IV. " After this (postea,) before the Emperor Charles, in a 
great assemblage of the Princes, this Confession was read." 

This extract shows, 1, that this complete Confession — the 
tota forma — the Articles on Doctrines and Abuses, as con- 
trasted with any earlier and imperfect form of the Confession, 
was submitted to Luther. 

2. This is wholly distinct from Luther's indorsement of the 
Confession as sent May lltb, for that was not the " tota forma," 
but relatively unfinished ; that had not been discussed before 
Princes, officials, and preachers, for they were not yet at Augs- 
burg. Nor was it then meant that the Confession should be 
made in the name of all the Evangelical States. It was to be 
limited to Saxony. Luther's reply to the letter of May 11th 
was not to the Princes, but to John alone. Up to May 11th, 
the Elector (with his suite) was the only one of the Princes at 
Augsburg. On the 12th, the Landgrave of Hesse came ; on 
the 15th the Nurembergers. Not until after May 22d did 
that conference and discussion take place, of which Melanch- 
thon speaks. After the whole form of the Confession had been 
decided upon, it was sent to Luther, received his final indorse- 
ment, and was presented to Charles. This complete form was 
identical in matter with the Confession as exhibited, although 
verbal changes were made by Melanchthon up to the very time 
of its delivery. 

On Luther's opinion of the Augsburg Confession, we propose 
to let Luther speak for himself. 

1. 1530, May 15. In Luther's reply to the Elector, he says : 



234 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

" I have read the Apology (Confession,) of Philip, from begin- 
ning to end ; it pleases me exceedingly well, and I know of 
nothing by which I conld better it, or change it, nor would I 
Luther's opin- De fitted to do it, for I cannot move so moderately 
i<m oftheAugs- anc i gently. May Christ our Lord help, that it 

burg Confession. , . r -. , , „ . - 

may bring forth much and great fruit, as we hope 
and pray. Amen."* 

These words of admiration for Melanchthon's great gifts, 
came from Luther's inmost heart. Less than six months before 
he had written to Jonas : f " All the Jeromes, Hillarys, and 
Macariuses together, are not worthy to unloose the thong of 
Philip's sandal. What have the whole of them together done 
which can be compared with one year of Philip's teaching, or 
to his one book of Common Places ? " Had Luther been at 
Augsburg, he would have allowed the work of finishing " the 
form of the Confession" to be given to no other hands than 
Melanchthon's. " I prefer," he says, " Melanchthon's books to 
my own, and would rather have them circulated than mine. 
I was born to battle with conspirators and devils, therefore my 
books are more vehement and warlike. It is my work to tear 
up the stumps and dead roots, to cut away the thorns, to fill 
up the marshes. I am the rough forester and pioneer. But 
Melanchthon moves gently and calmly along, with his rich 
gifts from God's own hand, building and planting, sowing and 
watering. "J 

2. Between June 8th and 25th, we have Melanchthon's dec- 
laration,cited in our former extracts, as to Luther's approval of 
the Confession in the form it took after the discussion. 

3. June 3d. Luther to Melanchthon : " I yesterday re-read 
your Apology entire, with care (diligenter,) and it pleases me 
exceedingly." § 

4. July 6th, to Hausman : || he speaks lovingly of " our Con- 
fession which our Philip hath prepared." 

"* Luther's Briefe, De Wette, 1213, Walch xvi, 785. In Latin : Coelestinus i, 
40, Buddeus 93. In French : (Le Cop's) Chytraeus, p. 29. 

| Buddeus, No. 100. J Pref. to Melanchthon on Colossians. 

gin Latin: De Wette, No. 1243. Buddeus, No. 137. German: Walch xvi, 
1082. 

II Be Wette, No. 1245. 



LUTHER'S OPINION. 235 

5. July 6, to Cordatus : * " The Confession of ours was read 
before the whole empire. I am glad exceedingly to have lived 
to this hour, in which Christ through his so great Confessors, 
in so great an Assembly, has been preached in so glorious a 
Confession, and that word has been fulfilled : ' I will speak of 
thy testimonies in the presence of kings,' and this also has been 
fulfilled : ' and shall not be ashamed,' for ' him who confesseth 
me before men ' (it is the word of him who cannot lie,) i I also 
will confess before my Father who is in heaven.' " 

6. July 6, to the Cardinal Albert, Archbishop of Mentz, 
Primate of Germany : \ " Your Highness, as well as the other 
orders of the empire, has doubtless read the Confession, deliv- 
ered by ours, which I am persuaded is so composed, that with 
joyous lips it may say with Christ : ' If I have spoken evil, 
bear witness of the evil ; but if well , why smitest thou me ? ' 
It shuns not the light, and can sing with the Psalmist : 'I will 
speak of thy testimonies before kings, and will not be ashamed.' 
But I can well conceive that our adversaries will by no means 
accept the doctrine, but much less are they able to confute it. 
I have no hope whatever that we can agree in doctrine ; for 
their cause cannot bear the light. Such is their bitterness, 
with such hatred are they kindled, that they would endure 
hell itself rather than yield to us, and relinquish their new wis- 
dom. I know that this our doctrine is true, and grounded in 
the holy Scriptures. By this Confession we clearly testify and 
demonstrate that we have not taught wrongly or falsely." 

7. July 9, to Duke John, Elector of Saxony : \ ' ; Our adver- 
saries thought they had gained a great point in having the 
preaching interdicted by the Emperor, but the infatuated men 
did not see that by this written Confession, which was offered 
to the Emperor, this doctrine was more preached, and more 
widely propagated, than ten preachers could have done it. It 
was a fine point that our preachers were silenced, but in their 
stead came forth the Elector of Saxony and other princes and 
lords, with the written Confession, and preached freely in sight 

* De Wette, 1246. Walch xvi, 1083. 

f De Wette, No. 1247. Walch xvi, 1085. In Latin : Buddeus, No. 139. 

% De Wette, No. 1050. Walch xvi, 969. Latin : Buddeus, No. 142. 



236 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of all, before the Emperor and the whole empire. Christ surely 
was not silenced at the Diet, and mad as they were, they were 
compelled to hear more from the Confession, than they would 
have heard from the preachers in a year. Paul's declaration 
was fulfilled : ' The word of God is not bound : ' silenced in the 
pulpit, it was heard in the palace ; the poor preachers were not 
allowed to open their lips — but great princes and lords spoke 
it forth." 

8. July 9, to Jonas:* "There will never be agreement 
concerning doctrine " (between the Evangelical and Romish 
Churches,) "for how can Christ and Belial be in concord? 
But the first thing, and that the greatest at this Council has 
been, that Christ has been proclaimed in a public and glorious 
Confession ; he has been confessed in the light and to their face, 
so that they cannot boast that we fled, or that we feared, or 
concealed our faith. My only unfulfilled desire about it is 
that I was not present at this noble Confession. I have been 
like the generals who could take no part in defending Vienna 
from the Turks. But it is my joy and solace that meanwhile 
my Vienna was defended by others." 

9. July 15. Luther addresses a letter to his " most dear 
brother in Christ, Spalatine, steadfast Confessor of Christ at 
Augsburg ;"f and again, July 20th," to Spalatine, faithful 
servant and Confessor of Christ at Augsburg.":]: 

10. July 20, to Melanchthon : " It was a great affliction to me 
that I could not be present with you in the body at that most 
beautiful and holy Confession of Christ " § (pulcherrima et sanctis- 
sima.) August 3d, he sends a letter to Melanchthon, "his most 
dear brother in Christ, and Confessor of the Lord at Augsburg." 

11. But perhaps nowhere has Luther's enthusiastic admira- 
tion for the Augsburg Confession blazed up more brightly than 
in his eloquent summary of what our Confessors had done at 
the Diet. It is in the last letter he wrote to Melanchthon, 
before they again met at Coburg (September 15th):" You have 
confessed Christ, you have offered peace, you have obeyed the 
Emperor, you have endured injuries, you have been drenched 

* De Wette, No. 1251. Walch xvi, 1098. J Buddeus, No. 154. 

f Buddeus, No. 150. \ Buddeus, No. 155. 



LUTHER'S OPINION. 237 

in their revilings, you have not returned evil for evil. In 
brief, you have worthily done God's holy work as becometh 
saints. Be glad then in the Lord, and exult, ye righteous. 
Long have ye borne witness in the world, look up and lift up 
your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh. I will canonize 
you as faithful members of Christ, and what greater glory can ye 
have than to have yielded Christ faithful service, and shown 
yourself a member worthy of him ? " 

12. In his Table Talk Luther said: "Such is the efficacy 
and power of God's word, that the more it is persecuted, the 
more it nourishes and spreads. Call to mind the Diet at Augs- 
burg, where the last trumpet before the judgment-day sounded. 
How the whole world then raged against our doctrine ! Our 
doctrine and faith were brought forth to light in our Confes- 
sion. Our doctrines fell into the souls of many of the noblest 
men, and ran like sparks in tinder. They were kindled, and 
kindled others. Thus our Confession and Defence came forth 
in the highest glory." * 

13. In the year 1533, f Luther united in demanding of can- 
didates as a pre-requisite to entering the ministry, the declara- 
tion, " that they embraced the uncorrupted doctrine of the 
Gospel, and so understood it, as it is set forth in the Apostles', 
Mcene, and Athanasian Creeds, and as it is repeated in the 
Confession, which our Churches offered to the Emperor at the 
Diet of Augsburg, 1530, and the promise that with God's help 
they will remain steadfast in that conviction to the end, and 
will faithfully perform their duty in the Church." 

It is not wonderful that Melanchthon himself considered the 
Confession as rather Luther's than his own, and called it " the 
Confession of the revered Doctor Luther." \ 

This, then, is the result of the whole : The Holy Ghost in 
His ordinary illumination through the Word, is the true 
source and original of the Augsburg Confession ; its secondary 
source is the whole Evangelical Church of 1530, the main organ 

* Leipz., xx, 200. Tischreden (Fcerstemann,) iv, 354. 
f Buddeus, No. 178. 

% Melanchthon Orat. (1553.) Pref. to Confessio Doctrinae, 1551, in Corp. Kef., 
lib. xii, No. 5349. 



238 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of whose utterance was, as to the matter and the substance of 
the form, Luther ; as to the finish and grace of the form, 
Melanchthon : both acting with the advice, co-labor, and full 
approval of the clerical and lay representatives of the Church. 
Just as we accept this or that point of view, we may say that 
the Augsburg Confession is the work of the Evangelical 
Church, or of the theologians and laymen at Augsburg, or of 
Melanchthon, or of Luther. " The Confession of ours," " our 
Confession which our Philip prepared," "your Confession," 
" my Confession," are all terms employed by Luther. All 
these statementst are true, and perfectly harmonious — just as 
we may say that the Declaration of Independence was the work 
of the Thirteen Colonies, or of the Continental Congress, or of 
its Committee, or of Thomas Jefferson. Melanchthon, then, 
was by pre-eminence the composer of the Confession, not as a 
private individual, but as chief of a body of advisers, without 
whose concurrence nothing was fixed,* Luther, by pre-emi- 
nence, as the divinely called representative of the Church, its 
author. Hence all candid writers have most heartily in- 
dorsed Luther's own declaration, in which he not only claims 
the Augsburg Confession as in one sense his own, but ranks it 
among his most precious works : f " The Catechism, the Expo- 
sition of the Ten Commandments, and the Augsburg Confession 
are mine." This claim he puts in, in no sense which conflicts with 
the public character of the document, or of Melanchthon's 
great merit, as in part the compiler, and as in part the com- 
poser of the Confession. Koellner adds : " And he had the right 
to say so." Weber { says : "As to its matter, Luther was the 
author of the Confession, not indeed the only one, but the pri- 
mary one." " Melanchthon," says Danz, § " was the composer, 
the editor, not the author, (Redacteur, nicht Urheber.) " 

But are there not a few words of Luther in regard to the 
Confession, which are in conflict with this enthusiastic ap- 
proval ? "We reply, there is not one word of the kind. The 

* Melanchthon, June 26. "I would have changed more things if my coun- 
sellors would have permitted it." 
f Werke (Walch,) xxii, 4532. Koellner, 181 (45.) 
% L. S. prol. ad C. A. p. viii. § A. C. \ 3. 



LUTHER'S OBJECTIONS. 239 

passages which have been cited to show that Luther was not 
satisfied with the Confession, in some respects, are the 
following : 

1. June 29,* (to Melanchthon.) " On my side more than 
enough has been yielded in that Apology, which if they refuse, 
I see nothing more which I can yield, unless they furnish 
clearer reasons and Scripture proofs than I have yet seen them 
furnish." In this citation it is manifest that Luther does not 
mean that any concessions have been made, by Lnther , s alleged 
others, for him. It is his own concessions of objections to the 

. -, . p Confession. 

which he speaks, concessions not ot doctrine or 
of principle, but of preferences, very dear to him, which 
might be renounced if the truth itself were not periled. 
" Day and night " he adds, " I am occupied with the matter, 
thinking over it, revolving it in my mind, arguing, searching 
the entire Scriptures, and there grows upon me constantly that 
fullness of assurance, in this our doctrine, and I am more and 
more confirmed in the purpose, that I will yield nothing more, 
come what may." "I am offended at your writing, that in 
this cause, you follow my authority. I will not be, nor be 
called, author in this cause. If it is not equally your cause, it 
shall not be said that it was mine, and was imposed on you. 
If it be my cause alone, I will manage it alone." "If we be 
not the Church, or a part of the Church, where is the Church ? 
If we have not the Word of God, who has it ? " "As I have 
always written, so I now write, I am ready to concede to them 
everything, provided only, that the Gospel be left free to us. 
But what conflicts with the Gospel I cannot concede." This 
shows that Luther felt that no concession in conflict with the 
Gospel had been made in the Confession. 

2. The letter of July 3d,f to Melanchthon, is one which 
Ruckert, with the prosiness characteristic of the Rationalistic 
mind, is completely puzzled with, but he can make nothing of 

* In Latin: Epistol. Mar. Luth. Buddeus, 118. Coelestin. i. 198. De Wette, 
No. 1236. German: Jena (ed. 1566) 40. Leipz. xx. 185. French: Chytrseus (Le 
Cop) 131. 

f Latin : Ep. M. L. Budd. 127. Ccelestinus, 204. German : Walch xvi. 1082. 
De Wette.No. 1243. 



240 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

it, if it be not meant to censure the Confession. It must be 
granted, that it opens in an extraordinary manner for a letter 
of censure: "Yesterday, I read again carefully your Apology, 
and it pleases me vehemently." Now come the supposed words 
of stricture : " But it errs and sins in one thing, that it acts 
contrary to the Holy Scripture, where Christ says of himself, 
4 We will not have this man to reign over us ' ; and falls upon 
that reproof ' the stone which the builders rejected.' But 
where there is so great blindness and obstinacy, what can you 
expect but to be rejected. For they do not grant us the name 
of builders, a name which they arrogate to themselves, and 
with justice ; but we ought to glory in the name of destroyers, 
scatterers, and disturbers ; we should glory in being counted 
with the wicked, as that stone itself was counted with thieves 
and condemned with them.'*' To one familiar with Luther's 
style and vein of thought, it is at once apparent that these 
words are ironical : they burlesque, and hardly burlesque, the 
absurd arguments and use of texts of which some of the 
Romish Controversialists of that day were guilty. Luther begins 
by playfully personating such an objector. The Confession 
will have Christ to reign over us, but the objector urges this is 
contrary to Scripture, which says : ' We will not have t is man 
to reign over us.' The Confession moreover is reproved by 
Scripture for making a corner-stone of the very thing which 
the builders rejected. We are the builders, and you reform- 
ers are the pullers down. The humor of the passage consists 
in making the opponents represent that as approval which the 
Scripture condemns, that as reproach which the Scripture ap- 
proves, and in throwing upon them their own claims to be build- 
ers. You are the builders, no doubt, the builders who rejected 
the stone which has become the head-stone of the corner, in 
the Confession. 

3. The letter of July 21,* to Justus Jonas, speaking of the 
question which had been put, ' Whether the Confession had 
more articles to present,' says : " Satan still lives, and has 
observed that your Apology, treading softly, has passed over 

* Latin : Budd. 169. Coelestinus, 233. German: Walch xvi. 2843. De Wette. 
No. 1266. 



LUTHER'S OBJECTIONS. 241 

the Article of Purgatory, of the Worship of the Saints, and 
most of all of the Pope as Antichrist. Unhappy Emperor, if he 
proposes to give up the Diet to listening to confutations of Luther , 
as if the present Apology did not give them enough to answer." 
This means that although the Confession, by not making a 
longer enumeration of abuses, had led to this demand, yet that 
it had quite enough. The words moreover, in the most unfa- 
vorable sense, would only show that Luther wished that 
among the Articles of Abuses there should have been a decla- 
ration that the Pope is Antichrist, and a full handling of the 
doctrine of Saint- Worship and Purgatory. But the Confession, 
as a conjoint public document, could only discuss what a ma- 
jority of those who were to unite in it thought best to present. 
Melanchthon himself was overruled in regard to matters he 
desired to introduce. The Augsburg Confession was no pri- 
vate document, but in the labors of both Luther and Melanch- 
thon in connection with it, both were the organs of the whole 
Church, and were compelled to sacrifice their mere private 
preferences to the common judgment. Every sentence, every 
word of the Augsburg Confession as it stands, embodies the 
faith of Luther, and received his unqualified, repeated, and en- 
thusiastic assent. 

If, in the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, in 
preparing his statement of the political abuses which justified 
our separation from Great Britain, had wished to specify one 
or two more than the Committee thought necessary, and which 
were consequently not inserted, it would not weaken his claim 
to the authorship of that document. J^or would the fact, that 
he continued to think that it would have improved it to have 
specified the one or two additional abuses, affect the conscien- 
tious heartiness with which he indorsed that document, nor 
impair the value of his testimony. But even the preference 
of Luther, to which this is a fair parallel, was but transient, 
and he came to see clearly what the whole world has since 
seen, that in its silence, the Augsburg Confession is a model of 
exquisite judgment, as in its utterances it is a masterpiece of 
style. 

The occasion of the Augsburg Confession was the command 
16 



242 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of the Emperor, — not that he demanded such a Confession, 
but that under the leadings of God's providence it grew out 

object of the °f llis summons. The last was destined to become 
Augsburg con- first, and the first last. The Confessors them- 
selves did not at first realize the full value of the 
opening which had been made for the proclamation of the 
truth, but when it dawned upon them they showed themselves 
worthy of their great position. They at first meant but an 
Apology. The faith they cherished, and the usages they prac- 
tised, they simply wished to defend from the current libels. 
This object they did not lose sight of, but it became secondary. 
Their distinctive object soon became the setting forth the great 
points in the whole system of heavenly truth, and the showing 
how, in its light, they had endeavored cautiously, and gently, 
yet firmly, to remove the abuses which had arisen in the 
Church of the West. The Apology was transfigured into a 
Confession. It was not only not meant to be a compromise with 
Popery, but it clearly showed, and was designed to show, that 
such a compromise is impossible. Our Eeformers had indeed 
cherished a noble hope, which bitter experience was constantly 
rendering feebler, that the whole Church of the West, re- 
deemed from the thrall of the Pope, might return to her ancient 
Scriptural faith, and, abjuring Roman Catholicism, attain once 
more to Christian Catholicity, and become a Communion of 
saints. If such a return had been possible, the Augsburg Con- 
fession, alike in the simplicity and purity of its statement of 
doctrine, the conservatism of its whole tone, its firmness and 
its gentleness, would have helped to facilitate it ; but the bridge 
it made was not meant to open the way back to error, but to 
aid men to come over to the pure faith. 

The Confession, in Latin and German, was presented to the 

The presenta- ^ et on Saturday, June 25th, 1530. Both texts 
tiou of the con- are originals ; neither text is properly a translation 

fession : Latin „ n "~ . ,, • i i -i 

and German oi the other ; both present precisely the same doc- 
Text * trines, but with verbal differences, which make the 

* Manuscripts of the Augsburg Confession in the Archives. Cf. Kollner, 321 
-336. 

A. Latin manuscripts. Kollner 323-329. Corpus Reformatorum, xxvi, 213-226. 



THE PRESENTATION OF THE CONFESSION. 243 

one an indispensable guide in the full understanding of the 
other ; both texts have, consequently, the same authority. 
The German copy was the one selected, on national grounds, 
to be read aloud. Both copies were taken by the Emperor, 
who handed the German to the Elector of Mentz, and retained 
the Latin.. It is not now known where either of the originals 
is, nor with certainty that either is in existence. In. addition 
to seven unauthorized editions in the year 1530, the Confession 
was printed, under Melanchthon's own direction, both in Latin 
and German, while the Diet was still sitting. Authorized edi- 
tions of this year, both in Latin and German, are in the hands 
of the writer, and have been examined in preparing this work. 
The Confession began to be multiplied at once. Innumerable 
editions of the originals, and translations into the chief lan- 
guages of Europe appeared. Its enemies have helped its friends 
to circulate it, and to preserve the re-issues of these originals 
from any change involving more than questions of purely lite- 
rary interest. 

When Melanchthon, in 1540, issued a varied Edition of the 
Latin, though he declared that the changes were but verbal, 
and that he designed only to state more clearly the precise 
doctrine of the Confession in its original shape, the changes 
were marked by foe and friend. In Melanchthon's Edition 

1. The Weimar MS : (Vin. Weim.) cf. Corp. Reform. 1. c. 223. Kollner 323. 
Foerstemann, Urkundenb. i. 444. Weber i. 79-81. The variations are given in 
Weber, Foerstemann, Hase, Muller, Corp. Reformat. — 2. The Anspach: (Onold. 
Ansb.)ut supra. — 3. The Hannoverian. Kollner 324. Weber i. 84. — 4. Hessian I. 
Kollner 325; Foerstemann i. 442, gives the variations. — 5. Hessian ii. Foerste- 
mann i. 444, gives the variations. — 6. Dessau (Anhalt. ) Cf. Weber i. 87, who gives 
the variations. — 7. The Nuremberg. Kollner 336 ; Weber i. 94, gives the variations. 

— 8. The Ratisbon. Kollner 327 ; Foerstemann 446, gives the variations (Reg.) 

— 9. The Wtirzburger, Kollner 329; Foerstemann (i. 446) gives the variations. 
B. German Manuscripts. 

1. The Mentz copy in the Protocoll of the Empire. This was long regarded 
as the original, and as such found a place in the Book of Concord (1580.) Cf. 
Weber i. 165; Kollner 306. — 2. Spalatin's (Weimar i.) — 3. Weimar (ii.) —4. 
The first Anspach (i.) — 5. The second Anspach (ii.) — 6. The third Anspach 
(iii.) — 7. The Hannoverian. — 8. The Nuremberg. —9. The Hessian. — 10. The 
Munich [Munch.] — 11. Nordlingen. — 12. Augsburg. Of all these Kollner, 
Foerstemann and Weber give full descriptions, and the two latter the variations ; 
so also Muller, under the text of the Editio Princeps. 



244 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of 1531, trifling changes of a verbal nature had been made, but 

in antithesis to both this Edition and the Original of 1530, 

that of 1540 is called the Variata. because it has 

The Augsburg . 

confession Ai- elaborated anew some of the articles, and has made 
tered.* important changes. The first articles so treated 

is the Article on Original Sin, (II) in which the changes are 
these as given in brackets : 

" They also teach that after Adam's fall all men propagated 
after the common course of nature [the natural mode] are born 
with sin [being born have sin of origin] that is without fear 
of God, without trust toward God. [But by sin of origin, we 
understand, what the Holy Fathers so call, and all the orthodox 
and piously instructed in the Church, to wit, liability (reatum) 
by which those born, are on account of (propter) Adam's fall, 
liable to (rei) the wrath of God and eternal death, as also, the 
corruption itself, of human nature, which (corruption) is pro- 
pagated from Adam,] and with concupiscence. [And the cor- 
ruption of human nature, defect of the original righteousness, 
or integrity, or obedience, embraces concupiscence.] 

* Melanchthon's varied edition of the Latin Confession of three kinds. 
I. 1531, 8vo. II. 1540, 4to. III. 1542, 8vo. Weber ii. 32-116. 

I. Edition of 1531, 8vo. The variations slight. It has never been pretended 

that they affect the meaning. Weber ii. 82-102. Corpus Reformat, xxvi. 337 

Lutheri Opera, Jena (1583) iv, 191-203. —Melanchthon's Opera, Wittenb. 1562, 
p. 27-38. — Corpus doctrinse, Leipz. 1563, given with that of 1542. — This edi- 
tion has often been confounded with the edition of 1530, 4to. (1. a.,) and was 
actually introduced by Selnecker into the first Latin edition of the Book of Con- 
cord. Cf. Weber ii. 102 ; Kollner 348. The variations are given in Hase : Pro- 
legomena xv. Confess. Variat.Varietas, and are marked (A.) 

II. Edition of the Latin Confession, 1540, 4to. The variata. Weber ii. 103-107. 
— Corpus Reformat, xxvi, 339. — It is given in Corpus Reformatorum xxvi, 351- 
416, with the various readings. (Edit, of 1535, 1538. — The variations are 
given in Hase: Prolegomena xv-lxxiv and are marked (B.) — It is translated in 
"An Harmony of Confessions," &c, Cambridge, 1586. It is there called the 
"first edition." Cf. Weber ii. 103, Kollner 349. 

III. Latin Confession of 1542, 8vo. The variata varied. — Weber ii. 108-116, 
Corpus Reformat, xxvi, 345. — Given in Corpus Doctrinae, Lipsiae, 1563. 1-56. — 
Fabricii Harmonia 1573. — Melanchthonis Opera (Peucer) Witt. 1562. i. 39-58. 
This has been frequently reprinted, and is sometimes confounded with the Vari- 
ata of 1540. — The variations are given in Hase, and are marked (C.) and in 
Corp. Reform, (ed. 4.) Cf. Weber ii. 108; Kollner 349. It is translated in "an 
Harmony," &c. It is there called " the second edition." 



THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION ALTERED. 245 

"And that this disease or vice of origin [And this defect is a 
horrible blindness and non-obedience, to-wit, to lack that 
light and knowledge of God which would have been in nature, 
in integrity ; likewise to lack that rectitude, that is perpetual 
obedience, the true, pure and highest love of God, and like 
gifts of nature in integrity. "Wherefore these defects and con- 
cupiscence, are things condemned, and in their own nature 
worthy death ; and the vice of origin] is truly sin . . . [They 
condemn the Pelagians who deny the sin of origin, and think 
that those defects, or concupiscence, are things indifferent or 
penalties only, not things to be condemned in their own nature, 
and who dream that man can satisfy the law of God, and can 
on account of this obedience of his own be pronounced just 
before God.] " 

The Fourth Article (on Justification) is greatly enlarged, 
and the treatment of the topic is very fine. The Fifth on the 
Means of Grace asserts more distinctly than the original Con- 
fession the universality of the offer of Remission in the Gospel, 
and is thus more positively Anti-Calvinistic in its expression on 
this point. The Sixth amplifies the doctrine of Holiness, in its 
relations to Justification. In the Mnth it is said : Baptism is 
necessary to salvation [as a ceremony instituted by Christ.] 
Infants through Baptism, being [committed] to God, are re- 
ceived into God's favor, [and become children of God, as Christ 
testifieth, saying of the little ones in the Church, Matt, xviii, 
4 It is not the will of your Father in heaven, that one of these 
little ones should perish'.] They condemn the Anabaptists 
who affirm that infants are saved without Baptism [and out- 
side of the Church of Christ.] This is yet more decidedly than 
the original Article incapable of a Calvinistic construction. The 
Articles on Free Will (xviii,) the Defence of Justification by 
Faith (xx,) the Worship of Saints (xxi,) are all ably amplified. 
The Articles on Abuses are recast and re-arranged. It is not 
to be disputed that in various respects, as a statement of doctrine, 
the Yariata has great beauty and great value, and that where 
it indisputably is in perfect harmony with the original Confes- 
sion, it furnishes an important aid in its interpretation. Had 
Melanchthon put forth the new matter purely as a private 



246 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

writing, most of it would have received the unquestioning ad- 
miration to which it was well entitled. But he made the fatal 
mistake of treating a great official document as if it were his 
private property, yet preserving the old title, the old form in gen- 
eral, and the old signatures. How would Jefferson have been 
regarded if in 1786, ten years after the Declaration, he had sent 
forth what he called the Declaration of Independence, enlarged 
here, abridged there, with new topics and new treatment, and 
with what seemed at least a concession to the power from 
whom we had separated, had added to this the names of the 
Committee and the vouchers of the Continental Congress, that 
this was its act and deed for the nation ? Melanchthon did 
worse than this. The Declaration of Independence was the 
mere form of an act consummated. The Augsburg Confession 
was a document of permanent force, and of continuous use. 
To alter any of its doctrines, was to acknowledge that so far 
the Confessors had erred, and to excite the suspicion that they 
might have erred in more ; and to alter the phrases, no matter 
what explanation might be given, would be construed as involv- 
ing alteration of doctrine. Nor were the adversaries of our 
faith slow in taking advantage of Melanchthon 's great mis- 
take. The first public notice of the change came from the 
Roman Catholic side. Melanchthon brought the Variata with 
him to the Colloquy at Worms, at the beginning of 1541.* 
The Augsburg Confession was by the request of the Protestants 
(Lutherans) to be the basis of the discussion. Eck brought 
to the Colloquy, from the Imperial Archives of Mentz, the 
German Original, which had been read at the Diet in 1530, and 
had been given to the Emperor. He opened with these words: 
" Before all else I would prefer one thing . . Those of the other 
part have offered to us a copy of the Confession and Apology, 
not at all (minus) in conformity with the Hagenau Recess, in 
virtue of which the Confession itself, as it was given (exhibita) 
to-his Imperial majesty, and the Princes, ought to have been 
given to us also, nakedly and truly . . . waiving that point how- 
ever, with a protest, we turn to the matter in hand." To this 

* Corpus Reformator. iv. No. 2132. P. Melanchthon. Leb. u. ausgewahlt. 
Werke, von Dr. Carl Schmidt. Elberfeld. 1861. 379. 



THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION ALTERED. 247 

Melanchthon replied, " As to the dissimilarity of copies, I an- 
swer that the meaning of the things is the same (rerum eandem 
esse sententiam,) although some things here and there, in the 
later edition, are more freed from harshness, (mitigata) or are 
more explicit.''' To this Eck replied : " As to the variation 
of copies, I could easily overthrow his reply, and show hy ocu- 
lar inspection, that not only in words, hut in the things them- 
selves, these copies depart from the Augshurg Confession. For 
brevity's sake I defer what I have to say, to the Articles as 
they come up in the colloquy, when I will make clear what I 
have alleged, as in the Tenth Article, etc." To this Melanch- 
thon said : " We can reply more fitly elsewhere to what has 
been urged in regard to copies — and let there be some modera- 
tion to charges of this sort." To this Eck said: " As to the 
change of copies, I now purposely pass it by." If Melanch- 
thon consciously made a change of meaning in the Confession, 
it is impossible to defend him from the charge of direct 
falsehood. For ourselves we do not hesitate for a moment. 
With all the mistakes into which Melanchthon fell through 
his great love of peace, we regard him as above all suspicion 
in any point involving Christian character. If the doctrine 
of the Variata differs from that of the Confession, the change 
was not designed by Melanchthon. We go further and say, 
that to accept it as a Canon, that the interpretation of the 
Variata is to be conditioned by a belief that Melanchthon 
designed no changes, will involve the interpreter in no absurd- 
ity. The Yariata can be so interpreted as to be in sufficient 
harmony with the Unaltered Confession, to leave Melanch- 
thon 's statement credible. Of the changes in the Tenth Ar- 
ticle (the Lord's Supper) we shall speak in another place. The 
Calvinists and Crypto-Calvinists acted as if they did not be- 
lieve Melanchthon's statement that no alteration of doctrine 
had been intended. In the Lutheran Church different views 
were taken of the matter. Those who believed Melanchthon's 
declaration that the changes were purely verbal, the better to 
express the very doctrine set forth at Augsburg, either passed 
them over without disapproval, or were comparatively lenient 
in their censure. Every instance of the seeming toleration of 



248 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

them in the Lutheran Church was connected with the suppo- 
sition that the Altered Confession in no respect whatever dif- 
fered from the doctrine of the Unaltered. There never was 
any part of the Lutheran Church which imagined that Me- 
lanchthon had any right to alter the meaning of the Confession 
in a single particular. Melanchthon himself repeatedly, after 
the appearance of the' Variata, acknowledged the Unaltered 
Augsburg Confession as a statement of his own unchanged 
faith, as for example, at the Diet of Ratisbon in 1541. In 
1557, at the Colloquy at Worms, he not only acknowledged 
as his Creed, the Unaltered Augsburg Confession, the Apol- 
ogy, and the Smalcald Articles, but by name, aud in writing, 
condemned the Zwinglian doctrine. But a few days before his 
death (1560), he said : " I confess no other doctrine than that 
which Luther propounded, and in this will abide to the eud 
of my life." Any man who professes to accept the Altered 
Confession, therefore, though he rejects the Unaltered, either 
is dishonest, or assumes that Melanchthon was, and shows 
himself willing to take advantage of his moral weakness. 
The history of the Altered Confession demonstrates that not 
only is it no gain to the peace of the Church, but produces a 
yet more grievous disturbance of it, when the effort is made to 
harmonize men by an agreement in ambiguous phraseology, 
the adoption of terms which are to be accepted in one sense by 
one set of men, and in another sense by another. 

The Current Edition of the Augsburg Confession in Latin, 

the one which is found in the Book of Concord, is 
Editions of^tLe the reprint of Melanchthon 's own first Edition of 
Augsburg cou- 1530. The Current Edition of the Confession in 
Germa n L * atinand German, however, which is the one found in the 

Book of Concord, is not a reprint of Melanch- 
thon's first Edition, and this fact requires some explanation. 

* Editions and Translations of the Augsburg Confession. 

For the Literature see Fabricius : Centifol. 109, 585-589.Feuerlin : Bibl. Symb. 
[1st ed. 44-69] p. 40 seq. Masch : Beytr'age zur Geschichte merkwiirdig. 
Bucher, [1769] i. 159. — Salig : i. 695-737. Koecher: Bibliotheca theol. Symbol. 
145-149. Weber : Kritisch. Geschichte. Vol. ii. — Kollner : Symbol. Luth. Kirch. 
226-237. 344-353. —Corpus Reformatum xxvi. 201-264. 337-350. On the trans- 
lations, cf. Weber ii. 4. Feuerlin 60-64 [66-69.] Rotermund, 184. Danz. 38. 



THE CONFESSION— CURRENT EDITIONS. 249 

The original German was, as we have seen, deposited in the 
imperial archives at Mentz. The Emperor had forbidden the 
Confession to be printed without his permission ; nevertheless, 
it appeared surreptitiously several times in the year, printed 

The work of Weber, which is classic in the department of the criticism of the 
text of the Confession, arranges the different editions according to the order of 
their publication thus: 

A. The unauthorized editions of the Augsburg Confession in 1530. These 
were issued contrary to the order of the Emperor, and without the knowledge of 
the Protestant Princes. Weber i. 353-408. Danz. 35-40. There were seven edi- 
tions of this kind. 

I. Latin : There was one Latin edition. This is described by Weber : i. 405- 
408, and the variations (Ed. Ant.) from Melanchthon's are given by him in the 
Beylagen to the second part of the Krit. Gesch. cf. Corpus Reformatorum xxvi. 
231-234. 

II. German. 

1. Described by Weber i. 357-366, and the various readings (Ae. Ex. 1.) given. 
Beylag. z. Erst. Theil. iii. — 2. Described by Weber: i. 367-372, more correct 
than the former. — 3. Described by Weber : i. 372-375, closely conformed to 
No. 1. — 4. Described by Weber: i. 376-381, closely follows No. 1. cf. Reimmani 
Catalog. 403. Feuerlin 41. — 5. Described by Weber: i. 381-387. cf. Salig. i. 
711. Feuerlin 41. — 6. Given by Zeidler in the supplemental volume of Luther's 
Werke. Halle 1702, p. 346-363. Described by Weber : i. 387-400, who gives 
the variations (Ae. Ex. 2.) Compare in addition. Kollner Symbolik 228-231. 
The whole of these, Weber has shown (400) are probably based on but one MS. 

B. Melanchthonian Editions : cf. Kollner, 231, 345. Melanchthon's Prsefatio. 
Salig. i. 471. Weber ii. 6. 

I. The first of these, the Editio Princeps, is the 4to edition, Latin and Ger- 
man. Wittenberg, 1530 (1531.) Copies of the Confession in this edition came to 
Augsburg while the Diet was still in session. Weber i. 356. ii. 11. Hase Pro- 
leg, v. 3, Kollner 234, cf. Feuerlin No. 253 (205) and above all, Corpus Re- 
formator. xxvi, 234-258. 

1. The Latin, accurately reprinted, with various readings, in Weber's Kritisch. 
Gesch. ii. Beylage i. Nothwend. Vertheidig. 1629. 24-223. The Latin of the ed. 
princeps is also the Textus receptus of the Symbol. Books. Reinecii Concord. 
Lips. 1708. Do. Lips. 1730. (A. C. Germ, et Latina cum vers. Graeca.) Pfaff : 
Lib. Symb. Tubing. 1730 first critical edition. Walch. Christlich. Concordienb. 
Jena 1750. Rechenberg: Concordia Lips. 1732 (1677.) — Twesten: 1816. Winer: 
1825. Hase: Libr. Symb. (1827) with various readings. — Francke : Lib. Symb. 
1846, with various readings, and compared with the German: Muller : Die Symb. 
Biicher, 1848. — Tittmann : Confessio Fidei &c, ex prima Melanchthonis edi- 
tione, Dresden 1830; 8vo. with notes. Weber, 1830, with notes — Foerstemann : 
Urkundenbuch i. 470-559, with various readings. — Corpus Reformatorum : 
xxvi. 263-336, with various readings. From this edition we have the doc- 
trinal articles in Schmucker's Pop. Theolog., 1834. Appendix i. Do. Luth- 
eran Manual, 1855. Translations. It has been translated into French: 



250 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

in no case from a copy of the original, but from copies of the 
Confession made before it had reached the perfect form in 
which it was actually presented to the Diet. These editions 
of the Confession not only being unauthorized, but not pre- 

Histoire de la Conf. d'Auxpourg (Chytraeus) mise en Francois par Luc le Cop. 
Anvers, 1582, 72-106 ; cf. Weber ii. 212-216. Fabricius, Cent. Luth. 588. —In 
English: An harmony of Confessions, &c. Cambridge 1586. — S. S. Schmucker, 
D. D., Popular Theology, 1834. In the doctrinal articles the condemnatory 
clauses are omitted, except in Art. xii, xiii, xvi, xvii. — E. Hazelius, D. D., Dis- 
cipline, etc., 1841. 5-56. The doctrinal articles only, but with the condemna- 
tory clauses. — C. P. Krauth : Augsburg Confession with notes. Philada. 1868. 
On the translations of the Augs. Confess, into English, cf. Weber ii. 216-218. 
Under the direction of Thomas Cromwell, "who died a Lutheran" (Burnet) the 
Augsburg Confession and Apology were translated by Richard Taverner into 
English, and were printed in London, 1586. 

2. The German of the Editio princeps {not the Text, recept. of the Symbol. 
Boohs) cf. Weber ii. 16-54; Kollner 346 (Cyprian Cap. x.) Given in Luther's 
Werke, Jena vi, 387. Leipzig, xx, .9. — Twesten : 1816. — Tittmann : Die Augs- 
burg Confess, nach den Original Ausgab. Melanchthon's. Dresden 1830, with 
notes, — MiiLLER : Symb. Biicher, 1848. Abdriicke von Melanchthon's erster 
Ausgabe' der Augsb. Confess. 861-904, with various readings. The variations 
from the German Text, recept., as given in Baumgarten's Concord. (Rh, from 
Rhaw — the printer of the original edition,)and in Walch : Concordienbuch (Wit- 
tenberg i.) Weber i. Beylag.iii. 

II. Melanchthon's " improved " edition of the German Confession, 1533, 8vo. 
Cf. Weber K. G. ii. 55-81. Feuerlin, 44, 45 (48,) Kollner 347. Given in Corpus 
Doctrinse. Leipz. 1560. i-xlii. — • Weber : Augspurg. Confession nach der Ur- 
schrift im Reich's Archiv, nebst einer Ehrenrettung Melanchthon's, Weimar.1781. 
8vo. The mistake of Weber, which led to the issue of this edition, is one of the 
curiosities of Theological Literature, (cf. Kollner Symb. 294.) It became the occa- 
sion of the preparation of his masterly work : The Critical History of the Augs- 
burg Confession. 

C. The Augsburg Confession (German) from a collation of the copy in the Im- 
perial Archives (The received German text of the Book of Concord.) Kollner 
349; Weber ii. 117-192. — Given in Chytreeus: Histor. der Augspurg. Confess. 
(1576) 1580. 59-94. —Ccelestinus: Historia Comit. August, 1577. ii. 151-167. 
— Concordia. Dresden 1580. Fol. 3-20. Nothw. Vertheidig. 1629. 24-223. Miiller, 
Historia 595-649. Reineccius 1730. Cyprian, Historia 1730. — Weber's Krit. 
Gesch. 1783, i. Beylage iii, with various readings. Schott 1829, and in most of 
the histories of the Augsburg Confession. — It is to be found in all the German, 
and German-Latin editions of the Symbols. With various readings in Reineccius 
1708. Baumgarten 1747. Walch 1750. Twesten 1816. Ammon 1829. Muller 
1848. Schmucker : Lutheran Manual, 1855. 325-339, gives the doctrinal 
articles and the Epilogue. Translations : The abridged translation of the ar- 
ticles on abuses in Dr. Schmucker's Popular Theology, p. 337, is from this edition. 
In the Lutheran Manual, 283-309, a complete translation is given of the articles 



THE CONFESSION— CURRENT EDITIONS. 251 

senting it in the shape in which it had actually been delivered, 
Melanchthon issued the Confession both in German and Latin. 
The German was printed from his own manuscript, from 
which the copy had been taken to be laid before the Diet. It 
reached Augsburg, and was read and circulated there, while 
the Diet was still in session. Melanchthon issued it expressly 
in view of the fact that the unauthorized editions were not 
accurate. 

The first authorized edition, the Editio Princeps, coming 
from the hand of its composer, and presenting not only in the 
nature of the case the highest guarantee for strict accuracy, 
but surrounded by jealous and watchful enemies, in the very 
Diet yet sitting, before which it was read, surrounded by men 
eager to mark and to exaggerate the slightest appearance of 
discrepance, was received by Luther and the whole Lutheran 
Church. Luther knew no other Augsburg Confession in the 
German than this. It was received into the Bodies of Doc- 
trine of the whole Church. It appears in the Jena edition of 
Luther's works, an edition which originated in the purpose 
of having his writings in a perfectly unchanged form, and was 

on abuses, also from this edition. The Unalt, Aug. Conf. New York, 1847, do. 
1848. Phila. 1855, for the Lutheran Board of Publication. — The Christian 
Book of Concord. New Market, 1851. Second edition revised, 1854. The Con- 
fession was translated by Revs. A. and S. Henkel, for the first edition, and re- 
vised by C. Philip Krauth, D. D., for the second. 

D. Combined editions. Cf. Weber ii. 193-206. Kollner 351. 

I. Latin. Fabricii Leodii : Harmonia Aug. Conf. Colon. 1573, Fol. It contains 
1. A text claiming to be the original. 2. The variata of 1542. 3. Various read- 
ings from the 4to edition of 1530, and the 8vo of 1531. Cf. Corpus Reformat, 
xxvi, 225-229. — Corpus Doctrinae, Lips. 1563. 1. The Confess, of 1542. 2. 
The 8vo of 1531. Translation: An Harmony of Confessions, Cambridge, 1586. 

II. German. Chytreeus : Historia (1580.) 1. The received text from the 
archives. 2. The text of the Editio Princeps where it differs from the other. 

III. German and Latin. Nothwendige Vertheidigung des Aug. Apffels. Leipz. 
1619. 24-223. Editio princeps of Latin, Textus recep. of the German. Reineccius 
1708. Do. 1730. Walch 1750. Muller 1848. Do. Tittmann 1830, Editio princeps 
of both. Twesten 1816. 1. ed. princ. of Latin and German. 2. German of the 
ordinary edition. 

IV. Greek, Latin and German (Dolscii) ed. Reineccius, 1730. 

E. Versified. — Augspurgisches Lehr-lied. The Doctrinal articles only. In 
Greek and Latin verse (Rhodomann) 1730. There is also an English versifica- 
tion of the Doctrinal Articles in the oldest Moravian Hymn Books. 



252 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

there given as the authentic Confession in antithesis to all the 
editions of it in which there were variations large or small. 

In the Convention of the Evangelical (Lutheran) Princes at 
^Taumberg in 1561, among whom were two of the original 
signers, this edition was declared to be authentic, and was 
again solemnly subscribed, and the seals of the signers 
appended. Nothing could seem to be more certainly fixed 
than that this original edition of Melanchthon presented the 
Confession in its most perfect form, just as it was actually 
delivered in the Diet. 

But unhappy causes, connected largely with Melanchthon's 
later attempts to produce unity by skilful phrases and skilful 
concealments, led to a most groundless suspicion, that even in 
the original edition there might be variations from the very 
letter of the Confession as actually delivered. That there were 
any changes in meaning was not even in those times of morbid 
jealousy pretended, but a strong anxiety was felt to secure a 
copy of the Confession perfectly corresponding in words, in 
letters, and in points, with the original. The original of the 
Latin had been taken by Charles with him, but the German 
original was still supposed to be in the archives at Mentz. 
Joachim II., in 1566, directed Ccelestinus and Zochius to 
make a copy from the Mentz original. Their copy was 
inserted in the Brandenburg Body of Doctrine in 1572. 

In 1576, Augustus of Saxony obtained from the Elector of 
Mentz a copy of the same document, and from this the Augs- 
burg Confession as it appears in the Book of Concord was 
printed. Wherever the Book of Concord was received, Me- 
lanchthon's original edition of the German was displaced, 
though the corresponding edition of the Latin has been 
retained. Thus, half a century after its universal recognition, 
the first edition of the Augsburg Confession in German gave 
way to what was believed to be a true transcript of the 
original. 

Two hundred years after the delivery of the Confession, a 
discovery was communicated to the theological world by Pfaff, 
which has reinstated Melanchthon's original edition. Pfaff 
discovered that the document in the archives at Mentz was 



DIVISIONS OF THE CONFESSION. 253 

not the original, but a copy merely, and the labors of "Weber 
have demonstrated that this copy has no claim to be regarded 
as made from the original, but is a transcript from one of the 
less-finished copies of the Confession, made before it had 
assumed, under Melanchthon's hand, the exact shape in which 
it was actually presented. While, therefore, the ordinary edi- 
tion of the Augsburg Confession, the one found in the Book 
of Concord, and from which the current translations of the 
Confession have been made, does not differ in meaning at all 
from the original edition of Melanchthon, it is, nevertheless, 
not so perfect in style, and where they differ, not so clear. 
The highest critical authority, then, both German and Latin, 
is that of Melanchthon's own original editions.* 

The current edition of the German, and the earlier edition 
of Melanchthon, are verbally identical in the larger part of 
the articles, both of doctrine and of abuses. The only differ- 
ence is, that Melanchthon's edition is occasionally somewhat 
fuller, especially on the abuses, is more perfectly parallel with 
the Latin at a few points, and occasionally more finished in 
style. When the question between them has a practical inter- 
est, it is simply because Melanchthon's edition expresses in 
terms, or with greater clearness, what is simply implied, or 
less explicitly stated in the other. 

The structure of the Augsburg Confession bears traces of 
the mode of its growth out of the Articles which formed its 
groundwork. It contains, as its two fundamental 

, •,• ,♦ p , i , Structure and 

parts, a positive assertion 01 the most necessary Divisions of the 
truths, and a negation of the most serious abuses. Augsburg con- 
It comprises : I. The Preface ; II. Twenty-one 
Principal Articles op Faith; III. An Epilogue-Prologue, 
which unites the first part with the second, and makes a grace- 
ful transition from the one to the other ; IV. The Second great 
Division, embracing Seven Articles on Abuses ; V. The Epi- 
logue, followed by the Subscriptions. 

The Articles are not arranged as a whole with reference to 
a system. They may be classified thus : 

* For the facts here presented, compare Weber Krit. Geschichte : Hase, Lib. 
Symb., Francke do. Kollner Symb , Luther. Kirch.. 342. 



254 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

I. The Confessedly Catholic, or Universal Christian Art- 
icles, — those which Christendom, Greek and Roman, have 
confessed, especially in the Apostles' and Xicene Creed. These 
were the doctrines of the Trinity (I), the Incarnation (III), the 
Second Coming of Christ, the General Resurrection , the Eter- 
nity of Rewards and Punishment (XVII), the Validity of Ad- 
ministration by Unworthy Ministers (VIII), the Offer of Grace 
in Baptism, and the Right of Children to it (IX), Church Gov- 
ernment (XIV), Civil Government (XVI), Free Will (XVIII), 
and the Cause of Sin (XIX). 

II. The Protestant Articles, — those opposed to the errors 
in doctrine, and the abuses in usage, of the Papal part of the 
Church of the West. To this the Confession, in its whole 
argument, based upon the Holy Scriptures as a supreme rule 
of faith, was opposed. But more particularly to the Pelagian- 
ism of Rome, in the doctrine of Original Sin (Art. II) : its cor- 
ruption of the doctrine of Justification (Art. IV) : its doctrine 
of Merit in Works (Art. VI, XX), of the Ministerial Office, as 
an Order of Priests (Art. V), of Transubstantiation (Art. X), 
of Auricular Confession (Art. XI), of Repentance (Art. XII), 
of the Opus Operatum in Sacraments (Art. XIII), of Church 
Order (Art. XX), of the true nature of the Christian Church 
(Art. VII), and of the Worship of Saints (Art. XXI). 

The entire second part was devoted to the argument against 
the Abuses in the Church of Rome, especially in regard to Com- 
munion in One Kind (Abus., Art. I), Celibacy of the Priest- 
hood (Art. II), the Mass (Art. Ill), Confession (IV), Human 
Traditions (V), Monastic Vows (VI), Church Power, and espe- 
cially the Jurisdiction of the Bishops (VII). 

III. The Evangelical Articles, or parts of Articles, — those 
articles which especially assert the doctrines which are con- 
nected most directly with the Gospel in its essential character 
as tidings of redemption to lost man,' — the great doctrines of 
grace. These articles are specially those which teach the fall 
of man, the radical corruption of his nature, his exposure to 
eternal death, and the absolute necessity of regeneration (Art. 
II) ; the atonement of Christ, and the saving work of the Holy 
Spirit (Art. Ill) ; justification by faith alone (IV), the true 



THE AUGSBURG C ONFE SSIO N—IT 'S VALUE. 255 

character of repentance, or conversion (XII) ; and the impo- 
tence of man's own will to effect it (XVIII). 

IY. The Conservative Articles, the Articles which set forth 
distinctive Biblical doctrines which the Lutheran Church 
holds in peculiar purity, over against the corruptions of Ro- 
manism, the extravagance of Radicalism, the perversions of 
Rationalism, or the imperfect development of theology. Such 
are the doctrines of the proper inseparability of the two natures 
of Christ, both as to time and space (Art. Ill), the objective 
force of the Word and Sacraments (Art. Y), the reality of the 
presence of both the heavenly and earthly elements in the 
Lord's Supper (Art. X), the true value of Private, that is, of 
individual Absolution (Art. XI), the genuine character of Sac- 
ramental grace (Art. XIII), the true medium in regard to 
the rites of the Church (Art. XV), the freedom of the will 
(XVIII), and the proper doctrine concerning the Cause of Sin 
(XIX). On all these points the Augsburg Confession presents 
views which, either in matter or measure, are opposed to ex- 
tremes, which claim to be Protestant and Evangelical. Pela- 
gianizing, Rationalistic, Fatalistic, Fanatical, unhistorical ten- 
dencies, which, more or less unconsciously, have revealed them- 
selves, both in Romanism and in various types of nominally 
Evangelical Protestantism, are all met and condemned by the 
letter, tenor, or spirit of these articles. 

Through the whole flows a spirit of earnest faith and of pure 
devotion. The body of the Confession shows the hand of con- 
summate theologians, the soul reveals the inmost life of 
humble, earnest Christians. 

The Augsburg Confession has incalculable value as an abid- 
ing witness against the Errors of the Roman Cath- The Allgslmrg 
olic Church. The old true Catholic Church was confession : its 

, . -, . . m-, value.* 1. As a 

almost lost in pride, avarice, and superstition. I he protest against 
great labor of the body of the clergy was to defend Romanism - 

* Interpretation of the Augsburg Confession, in Commentaries, Notes and 
Sermons. 

Histoire de la Confess. d'Auxpourg (Chytraeus) par le Cop. Anvers 1582. p. 
107-114. The notes are occupied with the citations, and historical allusions of 
the Confession. 

An Harmony of the Confessions, etc. "There are added in the ende verie 



256 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the errors by which they were enriched. Two false doctrines 
were of especial value to this end : The first, that the Church 
tradition is part of the Rule of Faith ; the second, that good 
works can merit of Grod. With both the formal and material 

short notes in which both the obscure things are made plaine, etc." Cambridge, 
1586. p. 593, ad fin. 

Mentzer : Exegesis Augustanae Confessionis (1613) Frankfort, 1690. Still 
retains its position as a work of the highest value. — Calovius : Criticus Sacer 
vel Commentar. in August. Confess. Lips. 1646. 4to. pp. 920. Do. Theologia sec. 
tenorem August. Confess., etc. 4to. pp. 1900. These two works only get as far as 
the first article of the Confession. — Alting H. : Exegesis Logica et Theologica 
August. Confess. Amstelod. 1647. 5-114. — Goebel : Augustana Fidei Confess. 
das ist die xxi Artikel. . erklaret. Frankf. a. M. 1654, Fol. pp. 1400. Under the 
title of Sermons, an elaborate Commentary on the Confession. — Calovius : Syn- 
opsis Controversiarum etc. secund. seriem Articul. August. Confess. Wittenberg, 
1685, 4to. pp. 1104. Lutherus Redivivus. Halle 1697. — Hoffman G. : Commen- 
tarius in August. Confessionem. Tubing. 1717. 4to. pp. 400. A work of great 
value. The portions of the other symbols parallel with the different articles of 
the Augs. Confess, are brought together ; the Wirtemberg Confession is also 
brought into the harmony. — Cyprian : Historia der Augspurg. Confession. Gotha, 
1730. p. 208-227. Specimens of a commentary on the i. xiii. xxii. xxviii. articles. 

— Von Seelen : Stromata Lutherana sive var. Script, ad. . . Augustan. Confess. 
On the v. and vi. art. on abuses, xii. On the citations of the Fathers, xvi. — 
Carpzovii : Isagoge in L. Eccl. Luth. Symb. Lips. 1675. 95-763. After the lapse 
of nearly two centuries, still the best of the eclectic works on the symbols. The 
Confession and Apology are treated together, cf. Fabricii Histor. Biblioth. iv. 
264. — Pfaff : Eccles. Evang. Libri Symb. Loca difncilia explanavit et vindi- 
cavit. Tubing. 1730. p. 28-86. The notes are very brief, and very valuable. — 
Walch : Introductio in L. S. . . observat. histor. et theolog. illus. 1732. 157-408. 
Classic, among the older works. — Reinecii : Concordia — adjectis, locis, etc. 
notisque aliis. Lips. 1735. 7-74. The notes mostly critical, or connected with 
the scriptural and patristic quotations in the Confession. — Boerneri: Institu- 
tions Theologiae Symbolicae. Lipsiae, 1751. — Baumgarten : Erleuterungen. 
2d. ed. 1761. Compendious and rich. — Walchii : Breviarium (1765,) p. 75-116. 

— Semleri: Apparatus (1775,) p. 42-127. Tittmann : Institut. Symbol. (1811) 
p. 91-134. — Tittmann: Die Augsburg. Confession: Confessio Fidei. Dresden 
1830. Winer (1825.) — Schopff: Die S. B. mit historischen Einleit. kurz. An- 
merk. u. ausfiihrlichern Erorterungen. Dresden, 1826. 24-103. — Yelin: Ver- 
such (1829) p. 70-77. —Schott C. H. : Die Augsb. Conf. mit historisch. Einleit. 
u. erlauter. Anmerkungen. Leipz. 1829. The Unaltered Augsburg Confession. 
To which is prefixed a historical Introduction to the same, by C. H. Schott. New 
York, 1848. — Weber: Conf. August, animadversionibus, historicis, exegeticis, 
dogmaticis et criticis. Halis 1830, 4to. — Spieker : Confessio fidei. . . varii gen- 
eris animadversionibus instruxit. Berolini 1830. — Tittmann : De summ. prin- 
cip. A. Conf. 1830. — Lochman G., A. M. The History, Doctrine, etc., of the 
Evang. Luth. Church. Part II, the Augsburg Confession, with explanatory notes 



ITS POLITICAL VALUE. 257 

principles of the Church corrupted, what could result but the 
wreck of much that is most precious in Christianity ? The 
protest needed then is needed still. The Roman Church has 
indeed formally abrogated some of the worst abuses which 
found their justification in her false doctrines ; the pressure 
of Protestant thinking forces, or the light of Protestant science, 
wins her children to a Christianity better than her theories ; 
but the root of the old evil remains — the old errors are not 
given up, and cannot be. Rome once committed, is committed 
beyond redemption. It needs but propitious circumstances to 
bring up any of her errors in all their ancient force. The fun- 
damental principle of infallibility, the pride of consistency, the 
power which these doctrines give her, make it certain that 
they will not be abandoned. Against all of Rome's many 
errors, and pre-eminently against those doctrines which are in 
some way related to them all, the Augsburg Confession must 
continue to hold up the pure light of the sole Rule of Faith, 
and of its great central doctrine of justification by faith.* 

The Augsburg Confession had, and has great value, in 
view of the sound political principles it asserted and guaran- 
teed. Signed by the princes and free cities, it was a sovereign 
ratification, and guarantee of the rights of the 2d. its political 
Church and of the individual Christian in the value - 
State. It asserted the independence on the State of the 
Church, as a Church, the distinctness of the spheres of the 
Church and State, the rights of the State over the Chris- 
tian, as a subject, the Christian's duty to the State, as a 

and remarks. Harrisburg, 1818. — Schmucker S. S., D. D. Elements of Popular 
Theology, with special reference to the doctrines of the Reformation, as avowed 
before the Diet at Augsburg in 1530. Andover, 1834. Do. Lutheran Manual, or 
the Augsburg Confession illustrated and sustained. Philadelphia, 1855. — Haz- 
elitjs E. L. : The Doctrinal Articles of the Augsburg Confession, with notes ; in 
the Discipline etc. of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of South Carolina. Balti- 
more, 1841. — Beck : Sammlung Symbol. Biicher — Evangelisch. Reform. Kirche. 
2d ed. Neustadt, 1845. ii. 353-406. — Francke: Libri Symb. Eccles. Lutheranse. 
Lipsiae 1847, 9-50. — The Unaltered Augsburg Confession. Philada. 1855. (for 
Luth. Board.) A few valuable notes by Prof. Schaeffer. — Sermons by Bakius, 
Goebel, Tholuck, Schleiermacher, Harms, and Sartorius. 
* Fikenscher. Gesch. d. R. z. Augsb. 208. Kollner ii. 395. 
17 



258 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

subject, and the supremacy of God's law and of the demands 
of conscience over all unrighteous enactments of man. It 
denned in brief, yet ample statements, the entire relation of 
ecclesiastical and civil power.* It overthrew the conception 
of the Church as a great world-dominating power — taught 
the obligation of legitimate civil ordinances, the lawfulness 
of Christians bearing civil office, the right of the State to 
demand oaths, to enact penalties, and to wage "just wars," 
and the obligation of the Christian citizen to bear part in 
them. It asserts that " God's command is to be more regarded 
than all usage — that custom introduced contrary to God's 
command is not to be approved." " Christians should render 
obedience to magistrates and their laws in all things," " save 
only those when they command any sin, for then they must 
rather obey God than men." It overthrew monasticism and 
enforced celibacy, those weaknesses of the State ; curbed the 
insolence of Pope, Bishop and Clergy, and restored the normal 
and divine relations of man to man, of subject to ruler, of 
Church to State, of God's law to human law, of loyalty to the 
rights of conscience. The Lutheran Church gives to every 
State into which she enters, her great voucher of fidelity to 
the principles on which alone free governments can stand. 
The Augsburg Confession was exquisitely adapted to all its 
3 its vaine as objects, as a confession of faith, and a defence of 
a confession and it. In it the very heart of the Gospel beat again. 
It gave organic being to what had hitherto been 
but a tendency, and knit together great nationalities in the 
holiest bond by which men can be held in association. It en- 
abled the Evangelical princes, as a body, to throw their moral 
weight for truth into the empire. These were the starting 
points of its great work and glory among men. To it, under 
God, more than to any other cause, the whole Protestant 
world owes civil and religious freedom. Under it, as a banner, 
the pride of Pome was broken, and her armies destroyed. It 
is the symbol of pure Protestantism, as the three General 
Creeds are symbols of that developing Catholicity to which 
genuine Protestantism is related, as the maturing fruit is 

* Art. vii., xvi., xxviii. 



ITS VALUE AS A GUIDE TO CHRIST 259 

related to the blossom. To it the eyes of all deep thinkers have 
been turned, as to a star of hope amid the internal strifes of 
nominal Protestantism. G-ieseler, the great Reformed Church 
historian, says:* "If the question be, Which, among all 
Protestant Confessions, is best adapted for forming the founda- 
tion of a union among Protestant Churches, we declare our- 
selves unreservedly for the Augsburg Confession." But no 
genuine union can ever be formed upon the basis of the Augs- 
burg Confession, except by a hearty consent in its whole faith, 
an honest reception of all its statements of doctrine in the 
sense which the statements bear in the Confession itself. If 
there be those who would forgive Rome her unrepented sins, 
they must do it in the face of the Augsburg Confession. If 
there be those who would consent to a truce at least with 
Rationalism or Fanaticism, they must begin their work by 
making men forget the great Confession, which refused its covert 
to them from the beginning. 

With the Augsburg Confession begins the clearly 4 Its value as 
recognized life of the Evangelical Protestant Church, a centre of e reat 
the purified Church of the West, on which her 
enemies fixed "the name Lutheran. With this Confession her 
most self-sacrificing struggles and greatest achievements are 
connected. It is hallowed by the prayers of Luther, among 
the most ardent that ever burst from the human heart ; it is 
made sacred by the tears of Melanchthon, among the tenderest 
which ever fell from the eye of man. It is embalmed in the 
living, dying, and undying devotion of the long line of the 
heroes of our faith, who, through the world which was not 
worthy of them, passed to their eternal rest. The greatest 
masters in the realm of intellect have defended it with their 
labors ; the greatest princes have protected it from the 
sword, by the sword ; and the blood of its martyrs, speaking 
better things than vengeance, pleads for ever, with the blood 
of Him whose all-availing love, whose sole and all-atoning 
sacrifice, is the beginning, middle, and end of its witness. 

But not alone on the grand field of historical 5 Its va]ue as 
events has its power been shown. It led to God's a guide to€hrist. 

* Theolog. Stud. u. Kritik, 1833, ii, 1142. Schenkel takes the same view. 



260 CONSERVATIVE BE FOE MAT I OK 

Word millions, who have lived and died unknown to the great 
world. In the humblest homes and humblest hearts it has 
opened, through ages, the spring of heavenly influence. It 
proclaimed the all-sufficiency of Christ's merits, the justifying 
power of faith in Him ; and this shed heavenly light, peace 
and joy, on the darkest problems of the burdened heart. " It 
remains forever," says Gieseler, " a light to guide in the right 
path those who are struggling in error." It opened the way 
to the true unity of the Church of Christ ; and if it has 
seemed to divide, for a little time, it has divided only to con- 
solidate, at length, the whole Church under Christ's sole rule, 
and in the one pure faith. 

Its history, in its full connections, is the history of the cen- 

e. its value for turies midway in the fourth of which we stand, 
the future. an( ^ ^e future of the Church, which is the future 

of the race, can unfold itself from the present, only in the 
power of the life which germinates from the great principles 
which the Augsburg Confession planted in the world. 

Can we honorably bear the name of Evangelical Lutherans, 

The Augsburg honestly profess to receive the Augsburg Confession 
confession as a a s our Creed, and honestly claim to be part of the 

Creed : what is in n • 

involved in a right Church ot our fathers, while we reject, or Jeave 
reception of it?* p e n to rejection, parts of the doctrine whose recep- 

* Works on Dogmatics, and the history of Dogmatics, of value in the interpretation 
or defence of the Augsburg Confession, or in illustration of the theology based 
upon or deviating from it. 

Mblanchthonis : Opera Dogmatics in the Corpus Reformatorum, vol. xxi.- 
xxiii. a. Loci Theologici (1521). b. Examen ordinandorum. c. Catechesis 
puerilis. d. Explicatio Symboli Niceni. e. Repetitio Augustanae Confessionis 
sive Confessio doctrinae Saxonicarum ecclesiarum. — Cf. Galle: Melanchthon 
(1840) and Augusti's, Edit, of the Loci (1821), for Melanchthon's changes in doc- 
trine. — Flaccii: a. Catalogus Testium veritatis (1556). b. Centurise Magdebur- 
genses. c. Clavis. d. Scholia in N. Test. — Chemnitz : a. de vera et substantial! 
praesentia. b. de duabus naturis. c. Loci Theologici. d. Examen Concil. Trident. 
e. Theologiae Jesuitic, praecipua capit. — Hutter : Compendium Locor. Theo- 
logic (1610) ed. Schutze 1772. — Osiander L : Enchiridion Controvers. (1614.) — 
Hunnius N: Epitome Credendorum (1625). — Gerhard J: a. Loci Theologici 
(1610) (Cotta). b. Confessio Catholica (1633). — Calovius : a. Apodixis (1684). 
b. Synopsis Controversiarum (1653). c. Mataeologia papistica (1647). d. 
Biblia Illustrata. — Koenig : Theologia positiva (1664). — Quenstedt: Theo- 
logia didactico-polemica (1685). — Bechmann : Adnotationes in Compendium 



THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION AS A CREED. 261 

tion gave our Church her separate being and distinctive name, 
and led to the formation of her Confession, and which are 
embodied in its articles, and guarded in their condemnatory 
clauses, and which our whole Church, for centuries, in every 
official act, maintained as principal and fundamental ? This 
is the real question. All others are side issues. This question, 
once agitated, can never be laid till it is fairly settled ; and to 
it, every conscientious man, every lover of our Church, should 
bend his prayerful thoughts. A testimony bearing upon the 
great question, a testimony of the highest importance, and 
entitled to be heard first of all, is the Confession itself, about 
whose claims so much is now said. 

In what light is the Augsburg Confession regarded in the 
Augsburg Confession itself ? This is a primary question for 
an honest man who thinks of subscribing it : for if the Con- 
fession itself, in its origin, its history, its letter, protests against 
certain ideas, it would seem that its witness against them is 
of more value than any other. Look, then, at a few facts : 

I. The Confession exhibited the one, undivided faith of the 
entire Lutheran Church in the Empire. It was not the work 
of men without authority to represent the Church ; but was 

Hutteri (1690). — Buddeus: a. Theologia Dogmatica (1723). b. De veritate 
religionis evaugelicae (1729). c. Religions-Streitigkeitenl724. d. Isagoge (1727). 

— Schmid J. A.: Breviarium theolog. polemic. (1710). — Lange: Oeconomiasalutis 
(1728). — Reinhard L. Theologia Dogmat. (1733). — Walch J. G. a. Dogmatische 
Gottesgelahr. (1749). b. Polemische (1752). c. ■ Religions-Streitigkeiten (1724). — 
Carpov. (1737). — Baumgarten S. J. a. Evangelische Glaubenslehre (1759). b. 
Theologisch. Streitigkeiten. (1762) c. Eeligions-Parteyen (1766). — Mosheim : 
a. Streit-Theologie (1763). b. Theolog. Dogmat. (1758). — Carpzov J. B. Jr. 
Liber doctrinalis (1767). — Walch C. W. F. a. Geschichte der Lutherischen Re- 
ligion (1753). b. Bibliotheca Symbolica (1770). — Semler : Institutio (1774). — 
Doederlein (1780). — Seiler : a. Theolog. dogmat. polemica (1780). b. Doctrin. 
Christian. Compend. (1779). — Morus : a. Epitome Theol. Christianae (1789). b. 
Commentarius in Epitom. (1797). — Beck: (1801). — Storr & Flatt : Dog- 
matik (1803). — Reinhard F. V. (1801). — Schott (1811). — Bretschneider: 
a. Dogmatik (1814). b. Entwickelung (1804). — Wegscheider : Institutiones 
(1815). — Twesten (1826). — Knapp (1827). — Nitzsch (1829). — (Schuman) : 
Melanchthon Redivivus, 1837. — Hase : a. Dogmatik (1826). b. Hutterus Red- 
ivivus (1829-1868). —Klein : (1822) Ed. Lange (1835). — Schmtd H. Dogmatik 
d.Evang. Luth. Kirche, (1843-1863). — Martensen (1855). —Sartorius (1861). 

— Thomasius (1863).— Philippi (1863). — Hofman (1860). — Kahnis (1868).— 
Luthardt (1868). 



262 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the voice of all the Churches. Its groundwork was laid by 
Luther ; materials were brought together by the great theo- 
logians of the whole Lutheran Church — by Brentius, Jonas, 
Spalatin, and others, who carefully examined and tested each 
other's work. The matchless hand of Melanchthon was em- 
ployed in giving the most perfect form, the most absolutely 
finished statement of the faith ; the Confession was subjected 
to the careful examination of Luther, by whom it was heartily 
approved. Melanchthon 's own account is : "I brought to- 
gether the heads of the Confession, embracing almost the sum 
of the doctrine of our Churches. I took nothing on myself. In 
the presence of the Princes and the officials, every topic was 
discussed by our preachers, sentence by sentence. A copy of the 
entire Confession was then sent to Luther, who wrote to the 
Princes that he had read, and that he approved the Confes- 
sion." Every position of the Confession had been pondered 
again and again, had been tried in the crucible of the Word, 
had been experienced in its practical power in the life, and had 
been maintained against sharp attacks, by our great Confessors, 
as well as by thousands of humble and earnest private Chris- 
tians. For the immediate work of its preparation, there were 
at least four months. It was on the 11th of May the Confes- 
sion was first sent by the Elector to Luther, and it was not read 
in Diet till the 25th of June ; so that six weeks elapsed between 
the time of its substantial completeness and of its presentation. 
Every touch after that time was the result of striving after 
absolute finish of style and perfection of handling. E"ever was 
a Confession more thoroughly prepared, more carefully and 
prayerfully weighed, more heartily accepted. 

II. As various kingdoms, states, and cities embraced the 
faith of God's word, as our Church had unfolded it, they 
accepted this Confession as their own, and were known as 
Evangelical Lutherans because they so accepted it. The Church 
was known as the Church of the Augsburg Confession, and 
that great document became a part of the defining terms of the 
Church. The Lutheran Church was that which unreservedly 
held the Unaltered Augsburg Confession in its historical sense. 

III. The arguments on which men rely now to shake the 



THE AUGSBURG C ONFE SSION AS A CREED. 263 

faith of the Church, had all been used before the Confession 
was prepared. In fact, the Rationalistic argument had been 
brought out with far more vigor and plausibility than usually 
attend it now, and those who renew the unsuccessful attempts 
of the original opponents of our faith, might with advantage to 
their cause study those old errorists. Nothing has been added 
to the argument of that day in the great substantial points on 
either side. After the learning and insinuating statement of 
OEcolampadius, whose work, Erasmus said, " might, if possi- 
ble, deceive the very elect," and which Melanchthon considered 
worthy of a reply — after the unflinching audacity of Carlstadt, 
and the plausible argument of Zwingle, which was so shallow, 
and therefore seemed so clear, it is not probable that the feeble 
echo of their arguments, which is now alone heard in the main- 
tenance of their views, would shake our fathers were they liv- 
ing. The Scripture argument stands now where it stood then, 
and the Word, which was too strong for Luther's human 
doubts then, would prove too strong for them now. It is not 
the argument which has changed : it is as overwhelming now 
as then ; but the singleness of faith, the simple-hearted trust 
— these have too often yielded to the Rationalizing spirit of a 
vain and self-trusting generation. If our fathers, with their 
old spirit, were living now, we would have to stand with them 
on their confession, or be obliged to stand alone. Luther 
would sing now, as he sung then : 

"The Word they shall permit remain, 
And not a thank have for it." 

IV. The very name of Augsburg, which tells us where our 
Confession was uttered, reminds us of the nature of the obli- 
gations of those who profess to receive it. Two other Con- 
fessions were brought to that city : the Confession of Zwingle, 
and the Tetrapolitan Confession : the former openly opposed 
to the faith of our Church, especially in regard to the Sacra- 
ments ; the latter ambiguous and evasive on some of the vital 
points of the same doctrine. These two Confessions are now 
remembered only because of the historical glory shed by ours 
over everything which came into any relation to it. But 



264 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

can it be, that the doctrine which arrayed itself against the 
Augsburg Confession at Augsburg can be the doctrine of that 
Confession, or capable of harmonizing with it anywhere else ; 
that what was not Lutheranism there is Lutheranism here ; 
that what was Lutheranism then is not Lutheranism now ; 
that Zwingle or Hedio of Strasburg could, without a change 
of views, honestly subscribe the Confession against which they 
had arrayed themselves, that very Confession, the main drift 
of some of whose most important Articles was to teach the 
truth these men denied, and to condemn the errors these men 
fostered, or that men, who hold now what they held then, can 
now honestly do what they would not and could not do then ? 
What could not be done then, cannot be done now. A prin- 
ciple is as little affected by the lapse of three hundred years as 
of one year. It cannot be, that, consistently with the prin- 
ciples of our fathers, consistently with Church unity with 
them, consistently with the Church name which their prin- 
ciples and their faith defined, men holding Romish, or Ration- 
alistic, or Zwinglian error, should pretend to receive the Con- 
fession as their own. Such a course effaces all the lines of 
historical identity, and of moral consistency, and opens the 
way to error of every kind. 

V. The language of the Confession, when it speaks of itself, 
is well worthy of attention. 

1. It calls itself a Confession, not a rule. The Bible is the 
only rule of faith, and this document confesses the faith of 
which the Bible is the rule. 

2. It calls itself a Confession of faith ; of faith, not of men's 
opinions or views, but of that divine conviction of saving truth, 
which the Holy G-host works through the Word. It speaks 
of that with which it has to do as " the holy faith and Chris- 
tian religion," "the one only and true religion," "our holy 
religion and Christian faith." The title of the doctrinal por- 
tion of the Confession is, " Principal Articles of Faith." 

3. The Confessors speak of this Confession of faith as " the 
Confession of their preachers, and their own Confession," " the 
doctrine which their preachers have presented and taught in 
the Churches, in their lands, principalities, and cities." The 



THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION AS A CREED. 265 

Preface closes with the words : " This is the Confession of our- 
selves and of ours, as now distinctly follows, Article by Article." 
They separate their faith alike from the errors of Rome and of 
the fanatical and rationalizing tendencies of the day. 

4. The Confession declares that : " The Churches among us 
teach " the doctrines set forth in the Articles. It is not simply 
great princes, nor great theologians ; it is the Churches which 
teach these doctrines. The private opinions of the greatest of 
men are here nothing. It is the faith of the Churches which 
is set* forth, and those who acted for them spoke as their rep- 
resentatives, knowing the common faith, and not mingling 
with it any mere private sentiments or peculiar views of their 
own, however important they might regard them. 

It is a great mistake to suppose that our Evangelical Prot- 
estant Church is bound by consistency to hold a view simply 
because Luther held it. Her faith is not to be brought to the 
touchstone of Luther's private opinion, but his private opinion 
is to be tested by her confessed faith, when the question is, 
What is genuinely Lutheran? The name Lutheran, as our 
Church tolerates it, means no more than that she heartily 
accepts that New Testament faith in its integrity, in whose 
restoration Luther was so glorious a leader. When, at the 
conferences at Augsburg, Eck produced certain passages from 
Luther's writings, Brentius and Schnepf replied : " We are not 
here to defend Luther's writings, but to maintain our Confes- 
sion." In showing that the Augsburg Confession is the Sym- 
bol of our time, the Formula of Concord rests its authority on 
its being " the unanimous consent and declaration of our faith." 
The private opinions of individuals, however influential, can 
in no sense establish or remove one word of the Creed of the 
Church. Any man who, on any pretence, gives ecclesiastical 
authority to private opinions, is robbing the Church of her 
freedom. She is to be held responsible for no doctrines which 
she has not officially declared to be her own. 

5. The Confessors say, at the end of the doctrinal Articles : 
" This is almost the main portion (summa : chief points, principal 
matters) of the doctrine which is preached and taught in our 
Churches, in order to the true Christian instruction and 



266 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

comfort of the conscience, as also for the edification of believ- 
ers." It calls the things it sets forth " the one, simple truth," 
and styles them " the chief," or fundamental, " Articles" 
(Hauptartikeln.) 

The Confessors style and characterize the Confession as 
" our Confession," as " the chief points of the doctrine taught 
in our Churches," as " the main (or fundamental) Articles," 
as "the Articles of faith." They say: " Those things only 
have been recited which seemed necessary to be said, that it 
might be understood, that, in doctrine and ceremonies, nothing 
is received by us contrary to Scripture ; " and they declare, at 
the close of their work, that it was meant as "a sum of doc- 
trine," or statement of its chief points, " for the making 
known of our Confession, and of the doctrine of those who 
teach among us."* 

6. The Confessors say of this statement of the main points 
of doctrine : "In it may be seen, that there is nothing which de- 
parts from the Scriptures ;" " it is clearly founded in the holy 
Scriptures," f " in conformity with the pure, Divine word and 
Christian truth." They declare, that, in these " main" or 
fundamental " Articles, no falsity or deficiency is to be found, 
and that this their Confession is godly and Christian (gottlich 
mid Christlich)." They open the Articles on Abuses by reit- 
erating that their Confession is evidence, that, " in the Articles 
of faith, nothing is taught in our Churches contrary to the 
Holy Scripture,":}: and the Confessors close with the declara- 
tion, that, if there be points on which the Confession has 
not touched, they are prepared to furnish ample information, 
" in accordance with the Scriptures," " on the ground of holy 
Divine writ." 

7. The Confessors say that in the Confession : " There is 
nothing which departs from the Church Catholic, the Universal 
Christian Church." % 

8. The Confessors moreover declare, that they set forth 

* Epilogue, 69, 5. f Epilogue, 70, 6. 

J Nihil inesse, quod discrepat a Scripturis — in heiliger Schrift klar 
gegriindet. 

g Ab Ecclesia Catholica — gemeine, Christlicher Kirchen. 



THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION AS A CREED. 267 

tlieir Confession that they may " not put their soul and con- 
science in the very highest and greatest peril before God by 
abuse of the Divine name or word." 

9. They declare, moreover, that it is their grand design in 
the Confession, to avoid the " transmission as a heritage to 
their children and descendants of another doctrine, a doctrine 
not in conformity with the pure Divine word and Christian 
truth." 

Our fathers knew well that human opinions fluctuate, that 
men desert the truth, that convictions cannot be made heredi- 
tary ; but they knew this also, that when men assume a name, 
they assume the obligations of the name, that they may not 
honestly subscribe Confessions unless they believe their con- 
tents ; and they knew that after this, their great Confession, 
men could not long keep up the pretence of being of them 
who were anti-Trinitarian, Pelagian, Romish, Rationalistic, or 
Fanatical. They could transmit the heritage of their faith to 
their children, trusting in God that these children would not, 
for the brassy glitter of Rationalism, or the scarlet rags of 
Rome, part with this birthright, more precious than gold. 

Our fathers believed, with St. Paul, that the true faith is 
" one faith," and therefore never changes. It is the same from 
age to age. The witness of a true faith is a witness to the end 
of time. When, therefore, Briick, the Chancellor of Saxony, 
presented the Confession, he said : " By the help of God and 
our Lord Jesus Christ, this Confession shall remain invincible 
against the gates of hell, to Eternity." 



VII. 

THE SECONDARY CONFESSIONS OF THE CON- 
SERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

THE BOOK OF CONCORD. 



IN" the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran 
Church, the Augsburg Confession is followed by five other 
statements of doctrine : the Apology ; the Schmalcald Articles ; 
the two Catechisms ; the Formula of Concord, in epitome, and 
ampler declaration, with an appendix of testimonies : the six, 
in conjunction with the three general Creeds, form- 

Contents and . ° p ' 

bulk of the Book mg the Book of Concord. The Augsburg Confes- 
of concord. g ^ on ^ ^q Smaller Catechism, and the Epitome, may 
be regarded as the texts, respectively, on which the Apology, 
the Larger Catechism, and the Declaration are Commentaries. 
The whole of these books can. be embodied in a fair type in 
an ordinary duodecimo volume. When we think of the space 
which a minister covers with the words in which during a 
single year he states the sacred doctrines — when we look at 
the many volumes in which particular authors have presented 
the results of their labors on Scripture, the folios which have 
been devoted to single topics, it hardly seems an excessive 
demand on the part of the Church that she should ask min- 
isters to study one small volume to reach the official expression 
of her judgment on the greatest questions, which pertain to 
pure doctrine, sound government, and holy life. Yet the Book 
of Concord has been denounced apart from the character of its 
contents on the ground that it contains so much. Be it right 

268 



BOOK OF CONCORD— CONTENTS AND BULK. 269 

or wrong, be. its teachings truth or falsehood, its bulk is suf- 
ficient to condemn it. 

The very right of the Book to a hearing, at least as regards 
its last -$xve parts, has been further denied on the ground, that 
a Church having once announced its Creed has no authority to 
change it by adding to it — and that to change by adding, in- 
volves the same fallacy as to change by subtraction ; that conse- 
quently those who at one extreme accept the whole Book of 
Concord, and those who reject the Augsburg Confession in 
whole or part, at the other, are alike illogical. — In reply to 
this these facts might be urged : 

I. The use of the word " Creed," in the objection is open to 
misapprehension. If, by it, is meant what a pure church be- 
lieves, the faith and doctrine of a pure church, it is true that 
these cannot be changed. What a pure church May a church 
believes is Scriptural, for a pure church means a f* nge ! ts Cre ® d? , 

■L 7 J- J. Creed as what 

church whose faith is Scriptural. If it be Scrip- is believed. 
tural, then to change it, is to abandon the truth, and to cease 
to be a pure church. Moreover, the faith of any church is her 
identifying point — losing that, she loses her spiritual identity. 
If the Catholic Church had abandoned her faith in the Trinity, 
she would have ceased to be the Catholic Church, and would 
have become the Arian sect. If the Protestant Episcopal 
Church were carried over into the Pomish faith, she would 
cease to be the Protestant Episcopal Church, and would be a 
part of the Romish apostasy. If the Evangelical Churches 
were to abandon the Evangelical faith, they would become 
Socinian or Universalist bodies, and if the Lutheran Church 
were to change her faith, she would cease to be the Lutheran 
Church, and would become either a new sect, or a part of this, 
that, or other of the old sects. It is a contradiction in terms 
to talk of a pure Church, as such, changing her faith. 

II. But if by " Creed," be meant an official statement of the 
faith held, it is a great mistake to assert that there can be no 
Church authority to add to it. As the Pule of 2 Creed 
Faith, the written revelation of God, has been en- statement of be- 
larged by successive additions from the early records 

which form the opening of Genesis, on through the Old and 



270 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

New Testaments, until the finished temple stands before us in 
the Bible ; so may the Church, as God shall show her her 
need, enlarge her Confession, utter more fully her testimony, 
and thus "change her Creed," to express more amply her one 
unchanging faith. If the Rule of an unchanging faith can be 
added to, the Confession of an unchanging faith can also be 
added to. 

The identity of the Church faith resembles not the same- 
ness of a rock, but rather the living identity of a man. The 
babe and the adult are identical. They are the same being in 
different stages of maturity : that which constitutes the indi- 
vidual does not change. The child does not grow to adult 
maturity by any change in personal identity — but retaining 
that identity grows by its attraction to itself, of what is con- 
sonant with its own unchanged nature. Adult perfection is 
reached not by amputations and ingraftings, but by growth, in 
which the identifying energy conforms everything to its own 
nature. The faith of the Church now is identical with what 
it was in the Apostolic time, but the relation of identity does 
not preclude growth — it only excludes change of identity. 
That faith must always be its essential self — whether as a 
babe receiving milk, or as a man enjoying strong meat. In a 
word, the advances are wrought, not by change in the- Church 
faith, but by the perpetual activity of that faith, a faith which 
because it is incapable of change itself, assimilates more and 
more to it the consciousness of the Church, her system of doc- 
trine, her language, and her life. 

To subtract from a pure faith differs as largely from a 
healthy development of that faith in enlarged statements, 
as the cutting off of an arm differs from the expansion 
of its muscles, by healthful exercise. The whole history 
of the Church illustrates the truth of this principle. The 
creeds recorded in the New Testament were generally confined 
to one point. The Apostles' Creed, in the earliest form 
Growth of the known to us, is a change of these primal creeds, 
in so far that it adds to their statements to make 
the faith itself more secure. The Apostles' Creed, as we 
have it now, is a change of the earliest form, adding to its 



GROWTH OF CREED. 271 

words to secure more perfectly its things. The Mcene Creed, 
in its earliest shape was a change in the same way from the 
Apostles'. The Mcene Creed, (Mceno-Constantinopolitan) in 
the Greek, is a change of the earliest Mcene, by addition. 
The Mcene Creed of the Churches of the West (both Roman 
and Protestant) adds the " iilioque " to the Mcene of the East. 
The Athanasian Creed, though but the expansion of two main 
points, is about six times as long as the Apostles' Creed. Then 
through ages the Church lay fallow ; the soil resting and 
accreting richness for the time of a new breaking up, and of 
a glorious harvest. The first great undeniable token that 
the warm rains from above were responsive to the toils of the 
husbandman below, in the field of the Lord, was the up- 
springing of the blade of the New Confession. The New Con- 
fession in its opening Word shows that it germinates from 
the old seed : " The Churches among us, with great accord, 
teach that the decree of the Mcene Council is true, and, 
without any doubting, to be believed." (A. C. I.) " Christ 
shall return again, as saith the Apostles' Creed." (A. C. 
III.) The other Confessions mark the same connection with 
the ancient Creeds: "Shall sanctify believers — as teach the 
Apostles' and Mcene Creed." (Ap. III.) "As the Apostles 
and Athanasian Creeds teach." (Smal. Art. II, 4.). " Since 
immediately after the time of the Apostles, nay, while 
they were yet on earth, false teachers and heretics arose, 
against whom, in the primitive Church, were composed Sym- 
bols, that is brief and categorical Confessions, which embraced 
the unanimous consent of the Catholic Christian faith, and the 
Confession of Orthodox believers and of the true Church, to 
wit : the Apostles', Mcene, and Athanasian Creeds ; we profess 
publicly that we embrace them, and reject all heresies, and all 
doctrines which have ever been brought into the Church of God, 
contrary to them." (Formul. Concord. 517, 3.) — " Those three 
Catholic and General Creeds are of the highest authority — 
brief, but most holy Confessions, solidly founded in God's 
word, most glorious Confessions." (Do. 569, 4.) 

The Augsburg Confession, itself, was a "change of creed, by 
addition," inasmuch as it more amply confessed all the points 



272 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, and added a 
confession on manifold points, held, indeed, potentially and 
implicitly in the faith of the pure Church, but never before 
formally confessed by her. 

But, furthermore, the Augsburg Confession, even as a Luth- 
eran document, is an abiding witness of the right and duty 
of Christian men, and a portion of the Christian Church to 
amplify the confession of the faith, according to the leadings 
of God's providence. For the Augsburg Confession is really 
not first, but fourth in the Genesis of our Church's first official 
statement of her distinctive faith. For first were the XY 
Marburg Articles, in which the great representatives of our 
Church made a statement of points of faith ; then the XYII 
Articles of Swabach, then the Articles of Torgau, and as the 
outgrowth of the whole, and their noble consummation, last of 
all, the Augsburg Confession. 

The Augsburg Confession , itself, grew from its earliest shape, 
at the beginning of the Conference at Augsburg, up to the 
day of its delivery to the Emperor. The one faith which it 
confessed in its infant form, shaped its phrases, added to its 
enumerations, guarded against misapprehensions more per- 
fectly, until it reached its maturity. 

III. The right to " change a creed," " by addition" is, if it 
be fallacy at all, not a common fallacy, with the assumption of 
a right to " change by subtraction." The mistake here involved 
Todefineisnot is m using the word " change" ambiguously, and 
to change. in making it falsely emphatic. We deny the right 

of a pure Church to change the faith : we hold that her creed 
should not be changed ; but we maintain, first, that to cut out 
articles of faith bodily from her creed, and to mangle and 
change the meaning of what remains, is to change her creed ; 
and secondly, that to leave her earlier creed untouched and 
unvaried, to cling to it heart and soul, in its original and 
proper sense, and in order to the maintenance of the faith it 
treasures, to witness again, in ampler form, by adding clear 
and Scriptural statements of doctrine, is not to change the 
creed, but is the act of wisdom to prevent its change. If a 
clergyman, on one Lord's Day, should succinctly set forth the 



GENERAL JUDGMENT OF TEE CHURCH. 273 

doctrine of justification by faith, and should find, that owing 
to the brevity of his statement, the uncultured had misunder- 
stood it, or the malicious had taken occasion to pervert it, he 
might very properly 7 on the next Lord's Day, amplify his 
statement, and thus " change his creed by addition," for every 
sermon is a minister's creed. If his doing so is a fallacy, it is 
surely not a common fallacy with his retractation, denial or 
evasion on the second Lord's Day, of what he taught on the 
first ; not a common fallacy, even if his second statement 
were needlessly extended, and though it introduced many 
statements on other closely associated doctrines. 

IV. "We object also to all unnecessary multiplication of the 
number or extension of the bulk of creeds. So does the Luth- 
eran Church, as a whole. For nearly three centuries, no 
addition has been made to her Symbolical Books ; and although 
it is quite possible that, for local reasons, parts of our Church 
may enunciate more largely particular elements of General judg 
her faith, we do not think it likely that the Luth- ment of the 

s-ii i ii 'm ii i Church as to de- 

eran Church, as a whole, will ever add to her sh-abieness of 
Symbols, not merely anything which can have such ample definition - 
relations to them as the Augsburg Confession has (which 
would be impossible), but not even such as the Formula of 
Concord has. 

But this does not settle the question now before us. We 
think we have shown, that to have creeds additional to the 
Augsburg Confession, is not in itself inconsistent or wrong. 
Now to the point : Is it necessary or desirable that there should 
be any such additional statements? To this question, our 
whole Church, without a solitary exception, which we can 
recall, certainly with no important exception, has returned the 
same reply, to wit : that it is desirable and necessary. For 
while it is a fact, that no creed, exclusively hers, except the 
Augsburg Confession, has been formally accepted in every part 
of the Lutheran Church, it is equally true that there is no impor- 
tant part of that Church which has not had, in addition, some other 
Greed. ]STo national, or great Lutheran Church, from -the begin- 
ning of her full organization, to this hour, has had nothing but 
the Augsburg Confession as a statement of her faith. For not 

18 



274 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

to speak of the three General Creeds to which the Lutheran 
Church pays higher reverence than to the Augsburg Confession 
itself, many of the Lutheran Churches before the preparation 
of the Book of Concord, had their Bodies of Doctrine, as bulky 
as the collection which has been so much decried for its vast 
extent, and sometimes more bulky. There lies before the 
writer, for example, the first of these, the Corpus Doctrinse, 
the Symbolical Books of Saxony and Misnia, printed in 1560, 
edited by Melanchthon, which, in addition to the General 
Creeds and the Augsburg Confession, has the Apology, and 
four other extensive statements of doctrine, forming a folio of 
more than a thousand pages. Every one of the seven ponder- 
ous Corpora Doctrinse has additions to the Augsburg Con- 
fession, as, for example, the Apology, both the Catechisms of 
Luther, and the Schmalcald Articles, in fact, everything now 
in the Book of Concord which had appeared up to the time of 
their issue. The Church Orders and Liturgies of the Sixteenth 
Century embraced Creeds. We have examined nearly all of 
them in the originals, or in Richter's Collection. We have 
not noticed one which has the Augsburg Confession alone. 
It is an historical fact easily demonstrated, that the Book of 
Concord diminished both the number of doctrinal 

The Book of 

concord repressed statements and the bulk 01 the books containing 
the muitipiica- them, in the various Lutheran Churches. It not 

tion of Creeds. 

only removed the Corpora Doctrine, but the yet 
more objectionable multiplied Confessions prepared by various 
local Eeformers, and pastors, of which not only lands, but 
cities and towns had their own. So far from the Book of Con- 
cord introducing the idea of addition to the Augsburg Confes- 
sion, it, in fact, put that idea under the wisest restrictions. But, 
not to dwell on this point further, it is certain that the Lu- 
theran Church, with a positive, almost absolute unanimity, 
decided, both before and after the Book of Concord, that it is 
desirable to have more than the Augsburg Confession as a 
statement of doctrine. 

The Lutheran Church in America is no exception to this 
rule. Her founders confessed to the whole body of the Sym- 
bols. The General Synod recognizes, in addition to the Augs- 



BOOK OF CONCORD — CONTENTS OF. 275 

burg Confession, the Smaller Catechism for the people, and in its 
Theological Seminary, originally, both Catechisms were men- 
tioned in the Professor's oath. In its present form the Smaller 
Catechism is retained. But if the Smaller Catechism he 
adopted, and an ampler statement of doctrine he an unlawful 
change, that Catechism alone must be adopted, and the 
Augsburg Confession which appeared a year later, be thrown 
out. 

The Book of Concord may be divided generically into two 
parts : the first part selected, the second part original. The 
first is formed by our Church Creeds, which it simply collected. 
The second is the Formula of Concord, in -two Book of con- 
parts, Epitome and Declaratio, which it first set cord ' Contents ot 
forth. Every part of both these divisions, except the first part 
of the first, would be rejected on the principle we now discuss ; 
in fact, if the principle were pressed through, logically, not 
only would the Augsburg Confession, but the Apostles' Creed 
itself be sacrificed to it. The Church would have to recover the 
earliest form of the Creed, or be creedless altogether. 

First of all, then, let it be remembered, that Jive-sevenths of 
what now forms the Book of Concord, were accepted in the 
Lutheran Church before that Book was compiled : secondly, 
that the directly confessional part of the Formula (the 
Epitome) is very little larger than the Augsburg Confession, 
the u Solid Declaration" being simply an exegesis and defence 
of the Epitome. Let us for the present look at these earlier 
parts of the Book of Concord. Taking then, one by one, the 
Symbols which follow the Augsburg Confession in the Book 
of Concord, let us ask whether it be ivrong, to acknowledge 
officially, that they set forth the faith of our Church ? To 
begin with the first of these, — 

IS IT WRONG- TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE APOLOGY AS A SYMBOL OF 

the Lutheran Church ? This question we will answer by a 
few facts. 

I. It will not be denied that it presents one and the same 
system of faith with the Augsburg Confession. It is in its 
first sketch the Answer from the hand of the great Melanch- 
thon, with the advice and co-]abor of the other theologians, 



276 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

to the Roman Catholic Reply to the Augsburg Confession. Pre- 
pared under the direction of the same authority that had origi- 
The Apology, nated the Confession, it was designed to present 
it to the Emperor in the same way. Happily, the Emperor 
refused to allow its presentation: for that refusal has substi- 
tuted for Melanchthon's sketch the Apology as we now have it. 
Melanchthon, on receiving the Papal Confutation, at once 
gave himself to the work of answering it in full. On the 
journey from Augsburg to Wittenberg, he labored on it. 
At Altenburg, in Spalatin's house, he was engaged upon it on 
Sunday, till Luther took the pen from his hand, telling him 
that " on this day he should rest from such labor. We can 
serve God, not only by labor, but by rest ; therefore he has 
given us the third Commandment and ordained the Sabbath."* 
13 o longer amid the confusion and disadvantages of a strange 
place, but at home, Melanchthon prepares this defence, expan- 
sion and explanation of the Confession. What can be more 
obvious than the Providence which reveals itself in the 
occasion and character of the Apology ? 

II. Kollner, confessedly a most able writer, but not Luth- 
eran in doctrine, says of the Apology : "It had from the very 
beginning, and has had without dispute up to the recent times, 
the validity of a Symbol." Winer, that princely scholar, 
whose laxity of doctrinal views gives more value to his testi- 
mony on this point, says : " Beyond dispute, with reference to 
the matter it contains, this work takes the first rank among the 
Symbols of the Lutheran Church." We might multiply cita- 
tions like these, but it is not necessary. 

III. The Apology has been regarded indeed in our Church 
as one of her noblest jewels. In making it one of her Symbols, 
she confessed her profound love for it. In reply to one of the 
fiercest assaults made upon her by the Jesuits, the Apology 
without note or comment, was reprinted, as in itself an ample 
reply to all the falsehoods that Romish malignity could invent 
against our Church. 

IV. In modern times, the attacks upon it have come first 

*Salig: Hist. d. Augsp. Conf. I, 875. Ledderhose's Melanchthon. Transl 
by Dr. Krotel, 115. 



THE APOLOGY. 277 

from the covert infidels who crept into the Church under the 
pretentious name of rationalists, and secondly from unionistic 
theologians. Over against this, the unvarying witness of the 
Lutheran Church has been given to the pure teaching, the 
great importance, and the symbolic validity of the Apology. 
Let a few facts illustrate this. 

1. The Lutheran States whose names are subscribed to the 
Augsburg Confession, offered the Apology to the Diet, and the 
sole reason why it did not take its place at once, symboli- 
cally co-ordinate in every respect with the Confession, was that 
Romish bigotry refused it a hearing. The fierce intolerance of 
the hour anticipated the objection to hearing anything further 
in the way of explanation or vindication of the Confession. 
Was it a fallacy of the same sort, for the Lutheran States to 
prepare the Apology, as it would have been for tb^m to have 
come back to the Diet, having taken out everything in the 
Confession, which Eck and his co-workers did not relish? 
Prepared by the author of the Augsburg Confession, and 
adopted by its signers, is it probable that the Apology was in 
any respect out of harmony with the work it defended ? 

2. In 1532, the Evangelical Lutheran States presented it at 
the Schweinfurth Convention as their Confession of Faith. 

3. In 1533, Luther, in a consolatory, printed, public and 
official letter, refers the Christians who were driven out of 
Leipzig, to the Confession and its Apology, as setting forth 
his faith and that of the Church. Both are incorporated in 
all the old editions of Luther's works, as so thoroughly an 
exhibition of his faith, of his thoughts and even of his phrase- 
ology^ really in an important sense to be considered his. 

In the letter to the persecuted Lutherans at Leipzig,* Luther 
says : " At Augsburg, our general (allgemeine) Confession 
sounded in the ears of the Emperor and of the whole realm ; 
and then, by the press, in all the world . . Why should I say 
more ? There are my writings and public Confessions — our 
Confession and Apology : in the Churches, our usages are before 
men's eyes ; wherein we superabundantly show what we 
believe and hold as certain, not alone in these Articles con- 

*Werke: Leipz. xxi. 20. Walch : x. 2228. 



278 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

cerniug the Sacrament, but in all parts of the faith . . There- 
fore, Dear Friends, he firm, let no one mislead you, give ear to 
no empty talk (Geschwatze), even though it should come from 
our own side : hut hold fast to our Confession and Apology . . . 
Hold fast to the Gospel, and to St. Paul's doctrine, to which 
also our Apology and our Church usage hold fast." 

4. In 1537, at Schmalcald, the Apology, at the request of the 
Princes, was thoroughly compared with the Augsburg Confes- 
sion by the theologians, and then, as consonant with the Holy 
Scriptures and the Confession, formally subscribed by them with 
the declaration, that they " believed and taught in their 
Churches in accordance with the Articles of the Confession and 
Apology."* 

5. In 1539, in Denmark, it was prescribed as a doctrinal 
guide to th% Lutheran pastors. 

6. In 1540, it was delivered to the Conference at Worms, as 
a statement of Lutheran doctrine, and as a basis of discussions. 

7. In 1541, it was solemnly confirmed by the "Evangelical 
Princes," " the Allied Estates of the Augsburg Confession," 
" the Protestant Princes and States," who say to the Emperor: 
" And that no man may doubt what kind of doctrine is set forth 
in our Churches, we again testify, that we adhere to the Con- 
fession which was presented to your Majesty at Augsburg, 
and to the Apology which has been added to it, nor do we 
doubt that this doctrine is truly the Consent of the Catholic 
Church, which has been delivered in the writings of the 
Prophets and the Apostles, and has firm testimonies of the 
Apostolic Church, and of the learned fathers — and in this 
faith and acknowledgment of Christ we shall ever call upon 
God and show forth His praise, with His Catholic Church." f 

8. It was incorporated in all the " Bodies of Doctrine," the 
" Corpora Doctrinse " proper, of the various parts of our 
Church, without exception; and 

. 9. In 1580, it took its due place in the Book of Concord. 

* In all the editions of the Symbolical Books at the end of the Schmaicald 
Articles. 

fMelanchthon's Opera. Witeberg. iv. 752. Corp. Reformat, iv. col. 483. In 
German : Walch : xvii. 865. (Bucers translation) Corp. Ref. iv. 493, 494. (Melanch- 
thon's Original.) 






VALUE OF TEE APOLOGY. 279 

V. It deserves the place our Church has given it. On the 
merits of the Apology Kollner * says : "In considering its value 
for its immediate purpose, it is difficult to praise this work enough, 
alike as to its form and the entire composition of it, and its 
doctrinal matter. It is written with an inimitable value of the 
clearness, distinctness and simplicity, which must Apology - 
carry conviction alike to the learned and the unlearned. Its 
moderation and modesty are worthy of the good cause it vin- 
dicated. The mild and pious character of Melanchthon so 
sheds its lustre on the whole, as to force the conviction that 
the noblest views and purest piety, with no particle of un- 
worthy aim, here struggle in behalf of religion. 

As to its matter, it is undeniable, that it presents the truth 
in the clearest light, and successfully maintains the Evangeli- 
cal doctrine over against the Komish system. Its effectiveness 
for the interests of the Gospel in its own era, is beyond description 
(unbeschreiblich.) Historically considered, therefore, the 
Apology may claim in the formation and confirmation of the 
Evangelical Church an infinitely high (unendlich hoher) value. 
To the Apology belongs an eternal value. If the Church should 
make to herself new symbols, she will take over her funda- 
mental doctrines from this symbol, and to it will be due a holy 
reverence to the end of time." 

The same distinguished writer says in another work : f " Not 
only for the immediate aim of its own time, but as absolutely 
now as in the era of the Reformation, the Apology has its value 
and importance for religious truth, inasmuch as it wrought all 
that (indescribable effect), alone by the deepest and weightiest 
truths of the Gospel, as the Augsburg Confession witnesses to 
them, and the Apology more amply unfolds and establishes them. 
The Augsburg Confession was an erudite State-paper, composed 
with equal diplomatic foresight and caution, and Evangelical 
simplicity, and for this very reason needed a fuller exposition . . 
Hence it was and is of inexpressible importance, that the illus- 
trious man, to whom, to say the least, the superintendence of 
the preparation of the Augsburg Confession had been given, 

* Symbol, d. Luth. Kirch. 436. 

fDie gute Sacbe d. Luther. Symbol, geg. ihre Ankliig. Gottingen. 1847. p. 153. 



280 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

should himself set in a yet clearer light its brief propositions, 
in this second jewel of Evangelical Lutheran testimony ; that 
he should explain and establish them from the entire complex 
of Evangelical Biblical truth. The fundamental and essential 
doctrine of the Evangelical Church, in its separation from the 
human additions of the Romish priestly caste, consists in this, 
that we are justified, not by the righteousness of works, but 
by regeneration in the faith of the G-ospel. And as this was 
the centre from which the heroes of the faith in the Reforma- 
tion fought out their triumphs, so is it now, not only pro- 
foundest truth, but is the chief doctrine of Christianity itself, 
a doctrine which insures to Christianity and to the Evangelical 
Church with it, a perpetual endurance — for it is the very 
truth eternal itself. This doctrine in which is the ground and 
essence of all Christianity, is established by Melanchthon in the 
Apology with a greater accuracy than anywhere else." "To 
its importance testimony is borne in the attacks of its enemies, 
who felt deeply the injury to their cause, connected with the 
clear, luminous, and Scriptural argument, the dialectic skill, 
the combination of repose and thoroughness, with a beneficent 
warmth which characterize this writing. In the grand thing, 
the doctrine, it is as pure as the Confession to whose vindica- 
tion it is consecrated." * 

The next great Confession in the Book of Concord is the 
Schmalcald Abticles. The very existence of these Articles 
is a proof that neither the Lutheran authorities, who caused 
them ~to be written, nor Martin Luther, who is their author, 
The schmaicaid nor the great theologians who advised in their pre- 
paration, nor Melanchthon, Jonas, Bugenhagen, 
Creutziger, Amsdorf, Spalatin, Brentius, and the other great 
theologians and pastors of our churches who subscribed them, 
imagined that to confess the Church's faith more fully involves 
a fallacy. 

The Articles were occasioned by the expectation that a free 
General Council, so ardently desired from the beginning by the 
Reformers, and so often promised, was at length about to be 
convened. The Pope convened a Council, to be opened at 

* Miiller lxxix. 



THE SCHMALCALD ARTICLES. 281 

Mantua, on the 23d of May, 1537. To this Council the Evan- 
gelical (Lutheran) States were invited to come ; and until it 
became manifest that it was not to be a free Council, they 
showed a strong desire to be represented in it. 

In consequence of the expectation that the truth would have 
a hearing, the Elector desired to have a new statement of the 
great doctrinal principles of our Church, touching those ques- 
tions which would arise at the Council as matters of discussion 
between Lutherans and Romanists. This desire how they orig- 
led him to commit to Luther the composition of mated ' 
new Articles as a basis of Conference. The Articles thus pre- 
pared were taken to the Convention of the Evangelical States, 
held at Schmalcald, in February, 1537. There they were thor- 
oughly examined by our great theologians, and by them sub- 
scribed, and, from the place where they were signed, came to 
be called the Schmalcald Articles. 

The question at once suggests itself, "Why was a new Con- 
fession prepared? Why was not the Augsburg Confession con- 
sidered sufficient, in itself, or as sufficient in conjunction with 
the Apology? Was our Church giving way, or Whytheywere 
changing her ground, or dissatisfied with her first necessary. 
great Confession ? Ear from it. The reasons were these : — 

I. The Augsburg Confession had too much, in some respects, 
for the object in view. The object in view, in 1537, was to com- 
pare the points of controversy between the Lutherans and the 
Romanists. The Augsburg Confession is in large measure a 
Confession of the whole faith of the Church universal, and 
hence embraces much about which there is no controversy 
between our Church and the Romish ; as, for example, the doc- 
trine concerning God and the Son of God. It was as much an 
object of the Augsburg Confession to show wherein our Church 
agreed with the Roman Church in so much of the faith as that 
Church had purely preserved, as to show wherein, in conse- 
quence of her apostasy from parts of the truth, our Church 
departed from her. The Augsburg Confession had done its 
great work in correcting misrepresentations of our Church on 
the former points. It was now desirable that omitting the 
discussion of what was settled, she should the more clearly ex- 



282 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

press herself on the points of difference. This was the more 
needful, "because in the efforts to come to an agreement at 
Augsburg, which followed the 25th of June,Melauchthon, in 
his great gentleness, had made concessions, whose real point 
the Romanists perverted, so as to find a warrant in them for 
false interpretations of the Confession in its distinctive doc- 
trines. They understood well the two counter-tricks of pole- 
mics : the one, to exaggerate differences until innocence looks 
like crime ; the other to diminish differences until truth seems 
nearly identical with error. The Church wished the deck 
cleared for action, that the truth disputed might put forth its 
whole strength, and the truth obscured reveal its whole char- 
acter. But 

II. The Augsburg Confession has too little for a perfect exhi- 
bition of the full position of our Church as to the errors of 
Some. In 1530, our fathers rightly avoided an unnecessary 
opening of points of difference ; for there was yet hope that 
many in the Church of Rome would be drawn by the gentler 
power of the truth, and that the fierceness of the conflict might 
be allayed. But the providence of God had made it impera- 
tive that the Church should more amply set forth now what 
she had succinctly confessed in 1530. 

III. The Augsburg Confession ivas not in the right key for the 
work now to be done. That Confession was the Church's em- 
bodiment of the Spirit of her Lord, when he is tender with 
the erring. Now the time had come when she was to embody 
the Spirit of that same Lord, when he speaks intones of judg- 
ment to the wilful and perverse. 

Through the Augsburg Confession, even in the night of con- 
flict which seemed to be gathering, the Church sang, " Peace 
on earth," but in the Schmalcald Articles, the very Prince of 
Peace seemed to declare that He had come to bring a sword — 
the double-edged sword of truth — the edge exquisitely keen, 
and the scabbard thrown away. Therefore, wise aud heaven- 
guided, the Church which had committed the olive branch to 
Melanchthon, gave the sword to Luther. 

The motion of the Augsburg Confession was to the flute, the 
Schmalcald Articles moved to the peals of the clarion, and the 



THE SCHMALCALD ARTICLE S— THEIR VALUE. 283 

roll of the kettle-drum. In the Augsburg Confession Truth 
makes her overtures of peace, in the Schmalcald Articles she 
lays down her ultimatum in a declaration of war. 

That which was secondary in the Augsburg Confession is 
primary in the Schmalcald Articles. At Augsburg our Church 
stood up for the Truth, that error might die by the life of 
Truth ; at Schmalcald she stood up against the error, that 
Truth might live by the death of error. To utter her new tes- 
timony, to take her new vantage ground, was to use conquests 
made, as a basis for conquests yet to be made. 

The Jesuits, indeed, set up the cry, that the Schmalcald 
Articles are in conflict with the Augsburg Confession. Our 
Church, by an overwhelming majority, has answered the false- 
hood, by placing them among her crown jewels. And there 
they deserve to be. " Not only were the doctrines of the 
Church presented clearly, but they were stated so thoroughly 
in Luther's style, might and spirit, that the era 
which he moved so profoundly, could not but recog- 
nize in them, alike a faithful image of the Truth, and a new 
point of support for it. In these Articles Luther presents 
directly the principles of the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church, 
and of the Romish See, in their conflict. In the name of the 
Evangelical Church he has spoken against the whole Papacy a 
bold and manly word, the word of refutation, with nothing to 
weaken its force. And this fact is decisive in establishing 
their high value for our own time. The impossibility of unit- 
ing the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church's pure life with Rome's 
worldly aims, is set in so clear a light, that the Evangelical 
Church will ever look upon this Symbol with the greatest rev- 
erence, and cling to it with true devotion. Melanchthon's 
Appendix to the Articles is classic alike in form* and matter. 
For our Church these writings must ever remain very weighty, 
and the more because outside of them there is nowhere else in 
the Symbols so ample a statement about the Papacy, and what 
is to be noted well, so ample a statement against it." (Kollner.) 

u They form," says Muller,* " with the earlier Symbols a 
complete whole, yet have, for the reasons given, an indepen- 

* Die Symb. Bucher, lxxxii. 



284 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

dent value, because in them the Lutherans for the first time, 
expressly and at large, define their relations to the Pope and 
the Papacy. We may say, that in and with them the 
Reformation closes, and the final separation from Pome is 
pronounced." 

The compassion which moved our Lord when He saw the 
multitudes, fainting and scattering abroad, as sheep having 

no shepherd, was breathed by Him into the heart 
chismsTtheiAc- of Luther, and originated the Catechisms. The 
casion and char- yearning to provide for the religious wants of the 

neglected people, early showed itself in Luther's 
labors,* and during the visitation in the Electorate of Saxony, 
1527-1529, matured in the decision to prepare the Catechisms : 
" This Catechism, or Christian instruction, in its brief, plain, 
simple shape, I have been constrained and forced to prepare by 
the pitiful need of which I have had fresh experience in my 
recent work of visitation." In its general idea, Catechizing, 
the oral instruction, of the young especially, in the elements of 
divine truth, is as old as religion itself, and has always been in 
the Church; but to Luther belongs the glory of fixing the idea 
of the Catechism, as the term is now used. He is the father 
of Catechetics proper, and the most ancient Catechism now 
used in the world is Luther's Shorter Catechism of 1529. In 
the Catechisms he retained what the Ancient Church had 
used as the basis of the elementary instruction, to wit : the 
Decalogue, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer : only adding the 
explanation of the Two Sacraments. " In this he showed far 
more Catechetical, Churchly-Didactic tact, than all the authors, 
whose thread is that of a system, be this system what it may. 
There is in the Catechisms a genuine conservatism, a holding 
fast and development of that which already had its home as 
the Christian Confession in the heart of the people. In the 
explanations which follow his questions, What does this mean ? 
How does this take place ? he has retained, almost word for 

* See Luther's Catechetical Writings, beginning with the Exposition of the 
Lord's Prayer for the simple laity, 1518. Werke : Leipz. xxii. Walch x. Er- 
langen xxi-xxiii. Luther's Catechisms. By John G. Morris, D. D. Evang. Rev. 
July, 1849. 



CONFESSIONAL AUTHORITY. 285 

word, language found in Kero (the Monk of St. Gall, A. D. 750), 
in his exposition of the Lord's Prayer, in fact, found yet earlier, 
in the Sacramentary of Gelasius (Pope 492-496.) It shows the 
self-renunciation, with which Luther held aloof from the for- 
mulary manner of Dogmatics and from Polemics ; it reveals the 
art of saying much in little, yet with all its pregnant richness 
never becomes obscure, heavy, unfit for the people. These 
qualities, in conjunction with that warm, hearty tone, in virtue 
of which Lohe " (who simply repeats an expression of Luther 
himself) " says the Catechism can he prayed, these — despite the 
barbarism of times and tendencies, whose nature it has been 
to have the least comprehension of the highest beauty — have 
preserved to this little book its exalted place of honor." * 

The love of the Church anticipated the orders of Consistories 
in the universal introduction of Luther's Catechisms, and au- 
thority could come in only to sanction what was already fixed. 
So truly did the Shorter Catechism embody the simple Christian 
faith, as to become by the spontaneous acclamation of millions, 
a Confession. It was a private writing, and yet beyond all the 
Confessions, the direct pulsation of the Church's whole heart 
is felt in it. It was written in the rapture of the purest Cath- 
olicity, and nothing from Luther's pen presents him more per- 
fectly, simply as the Christian, not as the prince of theolo- 
gians, but as a lowly believer among believers. 

In the Preface to the Book of Concord the " Electors, 
Princes, and Orders of the Empire, who adhere to the Augs- 
burg Confession," declare in conclusion : " We propose in this 
Book of Concord to make no new thing, nor in any Confessional 
respect to depart from the truth of the heavenly authority. 
doctrine, as it has been acknowledged by our pious fathers and 
ourselves. By this divine doctrine we mean that which is 
derived from the writings of the Prophets and Apostles, and 
embraced in the three Ancient Creeds ; the Augsburg Confession, 
delivered in 1530 to the Emperor Charles V. ; the Apology 
which followed it ; the Schmalcald Articles, and the Cate- 
chisms of Dr. Luther. Wherefore, it is our purpose in nothing 

* Palmer in Herzog's: R. E. viii. 618. Do : Evang. Katechetik. Stuttg. 5. ed. 
1864. 



286 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

to depart from these in things or words, but by the grace of the 
Holy Spirit, with one accord, to abide in this pious Consent, 
and to regulate all decisions in controversies on religion, in 
accordance therewith."* " And because this matter of reli- 
gion pertains also to the laity, as they call them, and bears upon 
their eternal salvation," says the Formula of Concord, " we 
publicly profess that we also embrace the Smaller and Larger 
Catechisms of Luther, regarding them as a sort of Bible of the 
laity, wherein all those things are briefly comprehended which 
in the Holy Scripture are more largely treated, and the knowl- 
edge of which is of need to a Christian man unto his salvation." 
" These Catechisms have been received and approved by all the 
churches of the Augsburg Confession, and are everywhere 
used in the churches and schools publicly, and in private houses 
— and in them the Christian doctrine, taken from God's Word, 
is set forth with the utmost clearness and simplicity for the 
use of the unlearned and of the laity." f 

In chronological order, as writings, the Catechisms, which 
appeared in 1529, would have preceded the Augsburg Confes- 
sion, and this is the order in the Thuringian Corpus of 1561 : 
but the chronology, so far as the Book of Concord preserves it 
in its arrangement, is that of acceptance as Confessions. 

It would seem as if by preeminent necessity the Catechism 
of a Church should have an unmistakable indorsement as 

opinions of official and confessional. It is the Catechism by 
n which her future ministers and her people are 
trained in the faith, in early life. If the Church 
puts into the hands of her children statements of doctrine in 
any respect false, she is the betrayer of their souls, not their 
guardian. A Catechism which embodies the pure faith in the 
form best adapted to preserve and diffuse it among the people 
is of inestimable value. Such a Catechism, if we may accept 
the judgment of the wisest and best men, our Church possesses. 
" It may be bought for sixpence," said Jonas, " but six thou- 
sand worlds would not pay for it." " Luther," says Polycarp 
Lyser, % " has written a short Catechism, more precious than 

*Muller. 21 : 299 : 518.5. f Do. 570.8. 

J In the Dedication of Chemnitzii Loci. 



eminent men, i 
regard to. 



OPINIONS OF EMINENT MEN. 287 

gold aud gems. In it the purity of the Church doctrine, drawn 
from prophets and apostles, is so compacted into one entire 
body of doctrine, and set forth in such luminous words, as not 
unworthily to be esteemed a Canon, as that which is drawn 
entire from the Canonical Scriptures. I can affirm with truth, 
that in this one little book are embraced so many and so great 
things, that if all faithful preachers, throughout their lives, 
should confine themselves in their sermons to the hidden wis- 
dom of God shut up in these few words, explaining them 
rightly to the people, and opening them at large from the Holy 
Scriptures, they could never exhaust that boundless abyss." 
" If," says Matthesius, * " Luther, in his whole course, had done 
nothing more than to introduce these Catechisms into the 
family, the school, and the pulpit, and to restore to the home 
the blessings at meat, and the prayers for morning and night, 
the world could never thank him enough, or repay him." 
" Such," says Seckendorf, f " is the union of pure doctrine and 
of spirituality in the Lesser Catechism, that in its kind it has 
no equal . . Above all is its explanation of the Apostles' Creed 
admirable." "Is there an eloquence which is sufficient — not 
to do full justice to the theme — but in some degree to vindi- 
cate the value of the book ? As I look upon the Churches 
everywhere, in the enjoyment of the blessing it brings, I confess 
that it surpasses all the range of my thought. If I must make 
the effort to express my regard for it, I acknowledge that I 
have received more consolation, and a firmer foundation of my 
salvation from Luther's Little Catechism, than from the huge 
volumes of all the Latin and Greek Church writers together. 
And although excellent theologians, not without success, have 
imitated Luther and written Catechisms, Luther's Cate- 
chism in the judgment of all good men deserves the palm."^: 
Matthes,§ who urges various objections to the Catechisms, 
nevertheless adds : " The little Catechism of Luther, with its 
explanations, brief, adapted to the people, childlike, and at the 
same time profound, meeting the wants of the mind and of the 

* Sermons on the Life of Luther. f Historia Lutheranismi. i. $ 51. 

\ Heshusius, quoted in Fabricii : Centif. Luther, ad Cap. lxxxii. 
§ Comparative Symbolik all. Christl. Confession. 1854. 



288 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

heart, is still the Catechism which impresses itself most readily 
on the memory of children, and more than any other produces 
the spirit and life of religion in them. If this be still the case, 
who can measure the blessing it brought in the era of the 
Reformation, when a new epoch of the religious nurture of 
the people and of their children began with it ? " " There are 
as many things in it as there are words, as many uses as there 
are points." * " It is a true jewel of our Church, a veritable 
masterpiece." f " It is impossible to estimate," says Koll- 
ner,^: " the value of these Catechisms for their time. Luther 
gave in them not only a brief sketch of the fundamental truths 
of the Gospel, but restored to life the actual Catechizing, the 
primary instruction in religion. The form of the Catechism 
w r as as fitting as its matter. Luther was a man of the people ; 
like Paul he had the gift of speaking to the masses, as no one 
else could, so that the simplest understood him, and heart and 
soul were alike touched. And this language of the heart, sus- 
tained by Luther's whole mode of thinking as a theologian, is 
the key-note of his Catechisms. They bear the true impress 
of his joyous assurance, of the earnest heartiness in which he 
was unique, and of all that true piety which here presents in 
conjunction the light and kindling which illumine the mind and 
revive the affections." Eanke's words] may fitly close these 
eulogies : " The Catechism which Luther published in 1529, and 
of which he says that, old a Doctor as he was, he himself used it 
as his prayer, is as childlike as it is profound, as easy of grasp 
as it is unfathomable, as simple as it is sublime.. Llappy he 
who nourishes his soul with it, who clings fast to it ! For 
every moment he possesses a changeless consolation — he has 
under a thin shell that kernel of truth which is enough for the 
wisest of the wise." 

We now approach the part of the Book of Concord, with 
the acceptance or rejection of which, the Book as a whole is 

Formula of likely to stand or fall. If the Book of Concord did 
concord. not conta i n ^ e Formula of Concord, it is very cer- 

* Dr. I. F. Mayer. f Baumgarten. 

J Die gute Sache, 157. 

II Deutsche Gesch. im Zeitalt. d. Reformat. Berl. 1839. ii. 445. 



FIRST DIVISION— PRELIMINARIES. 289 

tain that the most decided and persistent opposition it has 
experienced would never have been raised. There is no in- 
stance on record in which any State, city, or individual, accept- 
ing the Formula of Concord, rejected or objected to any other 
of the Symbols. To decide upon acknowledging it, is to decide 
really upon the acknowledgment of the whole. Was it needed ? 
Was it a restorer of concord, or a promoter of discord ? Is it 
a pure witness of the one unchanging faith ? Has it been 
stamped by the Church as an authoritative witness of her 
faith, and is it as such of force and value still ? On these 
questions it is impossible to form an intelligent Divisions of its 
opinion without recalling the main facts in the his- lll3tory - 
tory of this great document. This History may be divided 
into four parts. First : The events which rendered necessary 
the preparation of a new Confession. Second : The events 
terminating in the preparation of the Torgau Formula. Third : 
The development of the Torgau Formula into the Bergen 
Book, which in its revised form appeared as the Formula of 
Concord, in the Book of Concord, Dresden, 1580. Fourth : 
The subsequent reception of the Book of Concord. * 

First : Among the necessitating causes and preliminaries of 
the preparation of the Formula, may be mentioned : 

I. Melanchthon's vacillations, real and seeming. These were 
due to his timidity and gentleness of character, tinged as it 
was with melancholy ; his aversion to controversy ; his philo- 
sophical, humanistic, and classical cast of thought, and his 
extreme delicacy in matter of style ; his excessive reverence for 
the testimony of the Church, and of her ancient writers ; his 
anxiety that the whole Communion of the West First division. 
should be restored to harmony ; or that, if this were Preliminaries - 
impossible, the Protestant elements, at least, should be at peace. 
The coworking of these, in different proportions at different eras, 
produced inconsistencies of the most extraordinary kind, and, 
when Luther was gone and the intellectual headship of the 
Reformation devolved upon Melanchthon, the lack of self-con- 
sistence and firmness, which had been his misfortune as a man, 
assumed the character of a public calamity. The whole work 

* C. G. F. Walch : Breviarium L. S. E. L. 198-219. 
19 



290 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of the Reformation, as represented in Melanchthon, seemed 
destined to fall into chaos. Everywhere, his works in their 
various editions, were in the hands of the friends and foes of the 
Conservative Reformation. The friends of that Reformation 
were embarrassed and confounded, and its enemies delighted 
and encouraged, by perceiving endless diversities of statement 
in the editions of books, rapidly succeeding each other, books 
which, in their first form, Luther had endorsed as of Canonical 
purity and worthy of immortality. The very Confessions of 
the Church, determined by her authorities, and signed by her 
representatives, were emended, enlarged here, abridged there, 
changed in structure and in statement, as the restless spirit of 
refining in thought or style moved Melanchthon. All his 
works show the tinge of his mind at the time of their issue, 
whether affected by his hopes that Rome would be softened, 
or roused by the elusive prospect of real union with the less 
radical part of the Zwinglians. Melanchthon fell into a hal- 
lucination by which his own peace of mind was wrecked, his 
Christian consistency seriously compromised, the spirit of 
partisanship developed, the Church distracted and well nigh 
lost. This was the hallucination that peace could be restored 
by ambiguous formulas, accepted indeed by both parties, but 
understood in different senses. It is a plan which has often 
been tried and which never succeeds, where men are in earnest. 
It not only does not bind men more closely, but leaves them 
more widely alienated, more full of bitter mistrust. Men must 
be honest in their difference, if they are ever to be honest in 
their agreement. 

The three works of Melanchthon in which the changes were 
most noted and most mischievous, are 1 : the Augsburg Con- 
fession ; 2 : the Apology ; and 3 : the Loci Communes. 

II. Connected closely with Melanchthon's vacillations, vari- 
ous Controversies rose among the theologians of the Augsburg 
Confession, which may be stated as generically the conflict be- 
tween the Philippists, or adherents of Melanchthon, and the 
more consistent Lutherans. The great name of Melanchthon 
was used to shield much which there is no reason to believe 
he would have approved. Much that he wrote could be taken 






MELANCHTHON. 291 

in two senses. The Lutheran-Philippists, who took the more 
charitable view, put the best construction on them, and were 
reluctant to abandon one to whom the Church owed so much, 
and whom Luther had loved so dearly. The Eeformed put 
upon Melanchth on's words the construction most favorable to 
themselves. The Crypto-Calvinists made them their covert. 
The enemies of the Reformation appealed to them as proof 
that the first principles and doctrines of the Reformers had 
been abandoned. Whatever may be the meaning of Melanch- 
thon's words in the disputed cases, this much is certain, that 
they practically operated as if the worse sense were the real one, 
and their mischievousness was not diminished but aggravated 
by their obscurity and double meaning. They did the work 
of avowed error, and yet could not be reached as candid error 
might. We have twenty-eight large volumes of Melanch- 
thon's writings — and at this hour, impartial and learned men 
are not agreed as to what were his views on some of the pro- 
foundest questions of Church doctrine, on which Melanchthon 
was writi ns; all his life. 

III. 1560. A great centre of this controversy was furnished 
in the Philippic Corpus Doctrine, 1560, to which the Phil- 
ippists, especially in the Electorate of Saxony, desired to give 
Confessional authority, an effort which was resisted by the 
consistent Lutherans on the ground that it contained very 
serious errors. It was in the unionistic part of our Church, 
not the consistent part, that the tendency first appeared to put 
forth bulky Confessions, and the necessity for the Book of 
Concord was largely generated by the greatly larger Bodies of 
doctrine which were set forth by the Philippists. 

The Philippic or Meissen German Corpus of 1560, contained: 
1. The three General Creeds ; 2. The Augsburg Confession 
from the Wittenberg ed. 1553, enlarged and altered ; 3. The 
Apology ; 4. The Repetition of the Augsburg Confession, writ- 
ten in 1551, to be sent to the Council of Trent ; 5. The Loci 
Theologici ; 6. The Examen Ordinanclorum ; 7. The Answer 
to the idolatrous Articles of Bavaria ; and 8. A Confutation 
of the Mahometan Error of Servetus. The corresponding 
Latin Corpus of the same date, contains all the writings em- 



292 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

braced in the German : the Augsburg Confession is the Va- 
riata varied of 1542 ; and there is added to the whole Me- 
lanchthon's Eeplyfto Stancar. 

As this Corpus became the special rival of the Book of Con- 
cord, and the controversy so largely clustered around the ques- 
tion, Which should be preferred, this Corpus, or that Book? — 
it may be well to note : 

1. That the Corpus is greatly more bulky than the Book of 
Concord. 

2. With the exception of the General Creeds it is entirely 
composed of Melanchthon's writings. Not a line exclusively 
Luther's is in it. The Catechisms are not there ; not even the 
Schmalcald Articles are there. It was a silent dishonor put 
upon Luther, and his faith and work, apparently in the name 
of the Lutheran Church, by the men who afterwards clamored 
that Melanchthon was not treated with due respect in the Book, 
which yet gives the place of honor to Melanchthon's greatest 
confessional works, the Augsburg Confession and the Apology, 
and contains also his Tractate on the power of the Pope. 

3. It is largely composed of private writings on which no 
official action of the Church was taken. 

4. The texts of its most important parts are changed greatly, 
and corrupted. 

5. There is much in it cumbrous, and wholly unsuited to 
form a Confession. 

6. It is ambiguous on some vital points, and unsound on 
others. 

7. A treachery and double-dealing unworthy of our holy 
faith, and especially condemned by the frank directness, char- 
acteristic of Lutheran Christianity, underlies the whole concep- 
tion of the issue of such a Corpus. 

IY. The earlier Saxon Crypto-Calvinism, which the Wit- 
tenberg theologians embodied in various publications. Confes- 
sing one system of faith, it held and furtively promoted the 
doctrines of another, or ignored the truths it did not ojDenly 
assail. Many were involved in its meshes, who imperfectly 
understood its nature, and were slow to believe the worst of it. 
This greatly complicated the difficulties, and embittered the 



FIRST PERIOD. 293 

controversies of this century. Again and again it circum- 
vented and deceived the very men who were engaged in the 
effort to expose and overthrow it. 

V. 1569. The alarming state of things led to various consul- 
tations on the part of our theologians, who heartily desired to 
save the Church from being choked with the upspringing of 
error, or from being trodden down and torn to pieces in the 
effort to root it out. Chief among them were James Andrew, 
of Tubingen, who at an early stage of his efforts made a jour- 
ney into Lower Saxony, 1569, Martin Chemnitz, David Chy- 
traeus, and Nicholas Selneccer, all of them great theo- 
logians, moderate in spirit, earnest Christians, and intensely 
devoted to the purity and peace of the Church. 

YI. 1570. A Convention was convened at Zerbst, by the 
Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, and by Julius, Duke of 
Brunswick, for the promotion of concord among the theologi- 
ans, 1570. Andrese was satisfied with the results of the Con- 
vention, but they did not correspond fully with the expecta- 
tion of others. Heshus wrote against the Convention and 
against Andrese. So much had men in fact come to distrust 
what was most specious, that Andrese was suspected by some 
of secret connivance with the errors, to the casting out of 
which he was devoting his life. 

VII. 1573. Two Books, designed to promote peace, were pre- 
pared by Andrese and sent to the theologians of Lower Saxony 
for subscription : 1. Six sermons on the divisions which had 
arisen between 1548 and 1573 ; 2. An exposition of the exist- 
ing controversies. The first was sent in print. The second, 
prepared by advice of Chemnitz, remained in manuscript. 

VIII. 1574. The Electoral-Torgau Articles were written 
by the Saxon divines, by order of the Elector Augustus, 1574. 
These Articles were suspected, perhaps not without reason, of 
making concessions to Calvinistic errors. And yet upon the 
surface no charge seemed more groundless. He who reads 
them, supposing them to have been written in good faith, will 
be apt to see in them a thorough rejection and confutation of 
the Calvinistic Sacramentarianism. So perfect is the deception, 
if it be one, that Selneccer, on a first reading, was delighted 



294 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

with them, and congratulated the Church of God, that at Tor- 
gau, so pure and sincere a Lutheran Confession had been set 
forth. He who reads them now, is more likely to be surprised 
at Selneccer's change from this opinion, than at his having 
formed it. The Calvinists themselves complained bitterly of 
the severity of these Articles against them. Their leaders are 
named, their views stated and refuted. Beza, who was named 
in them more than once, wrote an answer to them. Hospinian 
regards them as the basis of the Formula of Concord. Even 
Hutter * says that "the something of the Calvinistic jugglings 
latent in them is found in very few places," and attributes, 
their defects either to the writers' want of full information 
about the points at issue, or to a charity which hoped by soft- 
ness of style to win the enemies of truth to accept it. In a 
time in which sad experience had found no reason for jealous 
care, these Torgau Articles would probably have been regarded 
by all as Selneccer first regarded them. A long succession of 
causes of distrust can alone account for their being suspected. 

IX. 1575. The Suabian-Saxon Formula of Concord, mainly 
the work of Chemnitz and Chytraeus, appeared in 1575. 
This is not to be confounded with the Confession of the 
Churches of Lower Saxony, prepared by the same hands, 1571. 
The " Exposition " of Andrese was well received by the Wiir- 
temberg theologians, but the Doctors of Lower Saxony, dissat- 
isfied with it, desired Chemnitz and Chytraeus to elaborate on 
it as a basis the Suabian-Saxon Formula, which was sent back 
after careful revision by the representatives of the churches to 
Wiirtemberg.' This Formula became a general ground-work 
of the Formula of Concord. 

The Second Period of the history of the Book of Concord 
follows the preparation of the Suabian-Saxon For- 
mula (1575) and ends with the completion of the 
Torgau Formula. The most important points embraced in it, 
are these : 

I. 1576. Feb. The Convention at Lichtenberg. Augustus, 
Elector of Saxony, saw that though the work of uniting the 
Church was begun, it was very far from completion. Under 

* Concordia Concor. ch. v. 



SECOND PERIOD. 295 

the influence of this feeling, (Nov. 21, 1575) he sent to his 
Privy Council, in his own hand-writing, a paper, worthy of a 
Christian prince. It took just views of the peril of the time 
and of its source, and so wisely marked out the principles, after- 
wards acted on, on which alone peace could be restored, that it 
may be regarded as having laid " the first foundation-stone of 
the Work of Concord." " We are to look," said he, " more to 
the glory of God, than to that of dead men." " Unity among 
us who claim to receive the Augsburg Confession, is impos- 
sible, while every land has a separate Corpus Doctrinse. In 
this way many are misled: the theologians are embittered 
against each other, and the breach is constantly widened. If 
the evil be not cured, there is reason to fear that by this em- 
bittering and confusion on the part of the theologians, we, 
and our posterity, will be utterly carried away from the pure 
doctrine. My plan is that we who confess the Augsburg Con- 
fession, shall unite and compare views in a friendly way ; that 
three or four peace-loving theologians, and an equal number of 
Civil Counsellors nominated by the heads of the States, meet 
together, bringing with them the different Corpora Doctrinse ; 
that they take the Augsburg Confession as their rule (Picht- 
schnur) ; that they compare the Corpora, and take counsel 
together how, out of the whole, to make one Corpus, which 
shall be the common Confession of us all." This paper led to 
the assembling, (Feb. 1576,) of the Convention at Lichtenberg, 
composed of theologians marked by that love of peace on which 
the noble Elector justly laid so much stress. These twelve 
theologians, among whom were Paul Crell of Wittenberg, and 
Selneccer, determined upon three things as essential to the 
establishment of concord : 

1. All private self-seeking and ambition, all personal griefs 
and contentions, all suspicions of injury and desire of reveuge, 
all the controversies and controversial writings between 
brethren, in the past, were to be given to eternal oblivion — 
were to be " as if they had never been." 

2. The Philippic Corpus Doctrinse was confessed to have 
been the occasion of misunderstanding. " That useful and 
good book, written by the sainted Philip, had been commended 



296 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

by us, and introduced into the churches and schools ; some 
had styled it a Norm of doctrine and Confession. This had 
been understood as designed to take the useful and admirable 
spiritual writings of Luther, of precious memory, out of the 
hands of pastors and people. Certain points in the Corpus, as 
Free Will, Definition of the Gospel, the Lord's Supper, want 
of sufficient explicitness toward the Sacramentarians, had been 
understood in a sense, or distorted to it, of which our Churches 
have known, and now know, nothing." While they therefore 
regard it as " an admirable, good and useful book," they re- 
nounce it as a " Symbol, Norm, or Rule." " The Norm of our. 
doctrine and Confession is this, We set and name, first of all, 
and unconditionally, the Writings of the Prophets and Apostles, 
the three (Ecumenical Creeds, and then the Augsburg Confes- 
sion, the first, Unaltered, its Apology, the Catechisms of Lu- 
ther and the Schmalcald Articles. If any one, because of the 
doctrine of justification, desires to add Luther on the Epistle to 
the Galatians, we would heartily agree with him." They 
then speak with severity of Crypto-Calvinistic books which 
had been furtively prepared and circulated, and advise the re- 
pression of them. 

3. They proposed that a Commission of theologians loving 
truth and peace, taking the Augsburg Confession as a rule and 
following its order, should prepare a clear statement in re- 
gard to the doctrines involved in controversy. They expressed 
their approval of the great divines who had already done so 
much in this direction, Chytrseus, Chemnitz, and Andrese, and 
added the name of Marbach. 

II. 1575. Nov. 14.. The Saxon, Henneberg and Wilrtemberg 
union of action. Though the earlier steps of this concerted 
action preceded the Lichtenberg Convention, it yet, because of 
its close connection with the Maulbrunn Formula, is more 
naturally placed here. 

1. It was said by an old French Chronicler, that the English 
are sad even in their mirth. It might be said of our pious 
Princes of the Sixteenth Century that they were religious even 
at their amusements. The Elector Augustus met George 
Ernest, the old Count of Henneberg, at the hunt, and in a con- 



SECOND PERIOD. 297 

versation on the troubles of the time, said that he would 
gladly correct the evils, especially those charged upon the 
Wittenberg theologians, if he could be furnished with a dis- 
tinct statement both of the false doctrines charged, and of the 
truths opposed to them. The Count promised to have a paper, 
of the kind desired, drawn up. 

2. The Count of Henneberg (Nov. 1575,) met Louis Duke 
of Wiirtemberg, at the nuptials of the Duke to the daughter 
of Charles, Margrave of Baden. When the festivities were over 
and the other princes had departed, the Count, the Duke, and 
the Margrave, agreed to commit to Luke Osiander and Bidem- 
bach the preparation of such a writing as the Count had 
promised. 

3. These divines laid as the groundwork of .their paper the 
Suabian-Saxon Formula (see Divis. First viii.), compressing it 
and adding proof passages from Scripture, and citations from 
Luther. Their work was finished ~Nov. 14, 1575. 

III. 1576. Jan. 19. The Maulbrunn Formula. 

1. The document thus prepared was submitted to a number 
of theologians, delegates of the princes. They tested and 
approved it in the Convention at the Cloister of Maulbrunn 
(Jan. 19, 1576.) 

2. The Maulbrunn Formula was sent, Feb. 9, 1576, by the 
Count of Henneberg to the Elector of Saxony. The Elector 
had meanwhile obtained (Jan. 17, 1576) a copy of the Suabian- 
Saxon Formula (Div. First, viii.) from Duke Julius. The 
Elector now placed both the Formulas, the Maulbrunn and 
Suabian-Saxon, in the hands of Andrese, for his advice. 

3. Andrese pursued a course in the matter worthy of his 
venerable name, and of the confidence reposed in him at the 
great crisis. Though the Suabian-Saxon Formula was built 
so largely upon his own labors, he confessed that it was unfitted 
for its end by the irregularities of its style, its copious use 
of Latin words, and its diffuseness, while its indeterminateness 
toward Melanchthon's writings might give rise to new contro- 
versies. The Maulbrunn Formula, on the other hand, which 
was in some sense an abridgment of the Suabian-Saxon, was 
too brief. His counsel, therefore, was that the two should be 



298 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

made the basis of a third Formula, which, combining the 
virtues of both, should avoid their faults. 

4. This counsel of Andrese was thoroughly approved of by 
the Elector. As the great function of the Formula of the 
future was to guard the true doctrine of the Augsburg Con- 
fession, and to this end it was necessary to fix and preserve its 
uncorrupted text, the first movement of the Elector was 
toward the securing of the copy of the Augsburg Confession, 
in German, made by Spalatin during the Diet, in 1530. 

IV. 1576, May. The Convention at Torgau. The Elector did 
not delay the now promising movement toward unity. He made 
the arrangements' for a convention of theologians, of different 
lands, at Torgau. Eighteen, out of twenty invited, appeared. 
Eleven of the twelve delegates at Lichtenberg were of the 
number, of whom Selneccer was the most distinguished. 
The other names of greatest renown are Andrew, Chytraeus, 
Chemnitz, Museums, and Corner. The deliberations were held 
at the Castle of Ilartenfels, the Rock of Hardness, a name of 
happy suggestion for confessors of the truth in troublous 
times. The inspection of the two Formulas, the Suabian- 
Saxon and the Maulbrunn, produced at once a oncurrence in 
Andrew's opinion, that the one was too diffuse, the other too 
brief, and an adoption of his advice to fuse both into a new 
Formula. They laid as the basis of the new, the Suabian- 
Saxon Formula, departing occasionally from its arrangement, 
pursuing, as nearly as possible, the order of Articles in the 
Augsburg Confession, and inserting an Article on the Descent 
into Hell. 

V. Thus originated the Book or Formula of Torgau, (1576), 
after the toils and anxieties of seven years. The Lichtenberg 
Convention had determined the general principle on which the 
Concord should be established ; the Suabian-Saxon Formula 
had furnished its basis ; the Maulbrunn Formula had aided in 
the superstructure ; the necessary combinations, additions and 
emendations, had been happily made at Torgau. Varied as 
had been the difficulties, and wide as had been the gulf which 
once yawned as if it would swallow up the Church, the accord 
of spirit had now been such, that in ten days the work of 



FORMULA — HISTORY OF THIRD PERIOD. 299 

Torgau was finished. The theologians who met May 29, were 
ready with the Torgau Opinion (Bedenken) June 7th, 1576. 
All the theologians had borne an active part in its preparation, 
but Andrese and Chemnitz are justly regarded as its authors. 
The Third Period of the history of the Formula of Concord 
opens with the sending forth of the Torgau Form- Formula His . 
ula for examination by the Churches, (1576), toi r of Third 
and ends with the publication of the Book of 
Concord, 1580. 

I. The Elector Augustus, (June 7, 1576), having carefully 
examined the Torgau Formula, and having laid it before his 
counsellors, submitted it to the Evangelical orders of the Em- 
pire, in order that it might be thoroughly tested in every part. 

II. The work was everywhere received, with interest. 
Twenty conventions of theologians were held in the 
course of three months. The Formula was scrutinized in 
every part. The work found little favor with the Calvinists, 
whether secret or avowed. The Reformed held a Conference at 
Frankfurt, SeJ)t., 1577, to avert what they considered a con- 
demnation of their party. Delegates were there from other 
countries. Elizabeth, Queen of England, sent ambassadors to 
several of the Evangelical States, and especially to the Elector 
Augustus, to avert the imaginary condemnation. The Elector, 
in a courteous but firm letter, assured the Queen, through the 
King of Denmark, that the object of the Formula was to 
correct and prevent errors within the Churches of the Augs- 
burg Confession, not to pass condemnation on other Churches. 
Some of the friends of Melanchthon thought that the Formula 
failed in not recognizing his merits. On the part of a few 
theologians, there was a scarce suppressed ill-humor that they 
had not been consulted in the preparation of the Formula. 
But the great mass of the twenty-five responses testified to a 
general approval of the Formula, and showed that the pure 
faith still lived. Many opinions of great value were expressed 
involving no change in doctrine, but suggesting various addi- 
tions, omissions, and alterations of language. It was clear 
that the book had not yet reached the shape in which it could 
fully meet the wants of the Church. 



300 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

III. As soon as the answers were received, the Elector 
Augustus, with the concurrence of Brunswick and Wurtemberg, 
called together the three greatest of the co-workers, Chemnitz, 
of Brunswick, Andrese, of Tubingen, and Selneccer, of Leipzig, 
to revise the Torgau Formula in the light of the expressed 
judgments of the Churches. They met, with the cordial 
consent of the Abbot Ulner, at the Cloister of Bergen, near 
Magdeburg. 

1. Here the Torgau Formula was submitted to its first revision, 
March 1 -14, 1577. The work was done veiy conscientiously. 
Every suggestion was carefully weighed, and estimated at its real 
value, the treatment was made more compact, and an Epitome 
of the Solid Declaration was prepared. The theory, that a 
second revision was made in April, at Bergen, has little to 
sustain it. 

2. The second and final revision of the Torgau Formula 
took place at Bergen, May 19-28, 1577. To the " first Trium- 
virate" Brandenburg added Corner, and Museums, of Frank- 
fort on the Oder, and Mecklenburg, at the special request of 
Augustus, sent Chytrseus of Rostock. Though they passed 
over the Formula with minute care, they found little to change. 

IV. The last touches were put to the work. At this stage, 
(May 28, 1577,) we know it as the Bergen Formula. It was to 
be known in history as the Formula of Concord, for this it was. 
Between this time and its publication in 1580, no change was 
made in it. There waited in it a silent might which the magic 
touch of the press was to liberate, to its great mission in the 
world. 

V. But wonderful as had been the work done, much yet 
remained to be done. When the Church first saw clearly the 
way in which peace was to be won, she saw that it involved 
four problems : 1. The determination what writings were to 
be her standard of teaching ; where was to be found a state- 
ment of doctrine which the Lutheran Church could accept un- 
reservedly as her Confession. 2. The preparation of a Confession 
which should apply the doctrines of holy Scripture, and of 
the earlier standards of teaching, to the new issues which con- 
vulsed the Church, and should protect the older standards 



THIRD PERIOD. 301 

from corruption and false interpretations. 3. The securing 
for both classes of Confession, the subscriptions of the teachers 
of the Church, as representatives of its faith, and 4. The 
solemn sanction of the norm of teaching by the Political 
Estates, which would shield it against violence.* 

Two of these problems had now been happily solved : The 
Augsburg Confession ; its Apology : the Schmalcald Articles 
and the Catechisms had been fixed upon as the standard of 
teaching ; and the Bergen Formula had determined the new 
questions, in accordance with that standard. Two problems 
remained. It was first contemplated to settle them by holding 
a General Convention, a plan, wisely abandoned. The plan 
adopted was, to submit the book for signature to the represen- 
tatives of the Church in the various lands. In far the larger 
part of the Lutheran States and Cities, the subscription was 
promptly made. It was throughout voluntary. A free expres- 
sion of opinion was invited. Force was put upon no man. 
Not even the enemies of the Formula pretended that such was 
the case. The Apostates from it, at a later period, did not pre- 
tend that they had acted under constraint in signing it. It 
was signed by three Electors, twenty-one Princes, twenty-two 
Counts, twenty-four Free Cities, and by eight thousand of the 
teachers of the Church. 

VI. It was impossible, nevertheless, in the nature of the case 
that there should be no dissenting voices. Few and feeble as 
they were when contracted with the joyous response of a 
major part of the Church, they were listened to with respect, 
and no effort was spared to unite the whole Church. But as 
one class of objections was often of the pettiest and most pitiful 
nature, for the most part the merest effusions of the ill nature 
of men who were too little to lead, and too vain to follow, and 
as another class, though of a more dignified nature, were 
drawn from mere motives of political jealousy, or State interest, 
the gentleness and patience failed of their object. Those who 
loved the Church best had hoped rather than expected, that 
all the Estates would accept the bond of union. This holy hope 
was not indeed consummated, but great beyond all expectation 

* Anton: Gesch. d. Cone, formel. I. 214. 



302 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

were the results, nevertheless. If the Church's vote was not 
absolutely unanimous, it was that of an immense majority. A 
Church threatened with destruction, from the insidious work- 
ing of error, had risen out of the chaos created by heresy which 
pretended to be orthodox. The darkness in which no man 
could tell friend from foe had been swept away. Deliverance 
had come from a state of pitiful strife and alienation, over 
which the enemies of God were already exuking as hopeless, 
and which would have ended in the overthrow of the Reforma- 
tion. But for the Formula of Concord it may be questioned 
whether Protestantism could have been saved to the world. 
It staunched the wounds at which Lutheranism was bleeding 
to death, and crises were at hand in history, in which Luther- 
anism was essential to the salvation of the whole Reformatory 
interest in Europe. The Thirty Years' War, the war of mar- 
tyrs, which saved our modern world, lay indeed in the future of 
another century, yet it was fought and settled in the Cloister 
of Bergen. But for the pen of the peaceful triumvirates, the 
sword of Glustavus had not been drawn. Intestine treachery 
and division in the Church of the Reformation would have 
done what the arts and arms of Rome failed to do. But the 
miracle of restoration was wrought. From being the most dis- 
tracted Church on earth, the Lutheran Church had become 
the most stable. The blossom put forth at Augsburg, despite 
the storm, the mildew and the worm, had ripened into the full 
round fruit of the amplest and clearest Confession, in which 
the Christian Church has ever embodied her faith. 

The Fourth Division of the History of the Formula of Con- 
cord embraces the events which followed its publication, Among 
them may be enumerated, as most important, the following : 

I. A number of Estates, not embraced in the first subscrip- 
tion, 1580, added their signatures, in 1582. There was now a 
grand total of eighty-six Evangelical States of the Empire 
united in the Formula of Concord. 

II. As regards its reception, out of Germany, may be noted 
these facts : 

1. The Princes and theologians by whom the Formula of 
Concord had been given to the world, had made no effort to 



FOURTH PERIOD. 303 

procure the subscription and cooperation of the Churches out- 
side of the German Empire. The reasons for this course were 
various. First, To have invited the co-working of other na- 
tionalities, would have complicated, to the degree of impracti- 
cability, what was already so tangled. Second, The 

J ' J b i Fourth Period. 

difficulties which originated the necessity for the 
Formula of Concord were comparatively little felt outside of 
Germany. The whole doctrinal Reformation, outside of Ger- 
many, was in a certain sense secondary. Germany was the 
battle-ground of the great struggle, and others waited, know- 
ing that the decision there would be a decision for all. Third, 
Political barriers existed. In some lands where the Lutheran 
Church had strength, the rulers were Reformed or Roman 
Catholic. One of the Reformed monarchs indeed, King Henry 
of Navarre, desired to form an alliance with the Evangelical 
States against the Roman Catholics, but the States, setting the 
pure faith before all political considerations, declined the alli- 
ance, except on the basis of the Formula of Concord. 

2. Denmark was the solitary exception to the rule in regard 
to foreign lauds, an exception due, probably, to the fact that 
the wife of Augustus of Saxony was the sister of the King, 
Frederick the Second. The feeling of Frederick II. was prob- 
ably a mingling of aversion, inspired by some of his theologians 
who were Crypto-Calvinistic or Philippistic, and of dread, lest 
the Formula of Concord should introduce into his land the 
controversies from which it had hitherto been free. How 
blind and irrational the feeling of Frederick was, is shown by 
the fact, greatly disputed but apparently well established, that 
without reading it, or submitting it to his theologians, he threw 
into the fire the superbly bound copy sent him by his sister, the 
Electress. On July 24th, 1580, he sent forth an order forbid- 
ding the bringing of a copy of the Book into Denmark, under 
penalty of the confiscation of all the property of the offender, 
and of his execution. Ministers and teachers, if convicted of 
having a copy in their houses, were to be deposed. In spite 
of this fierce opposition, the Formula came to be regarded in 
Denmark with the highest reverence, and in fact, if not in 
form, became a Symbol of the Danish Church. 



304 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

3. In Holstein, it was speedily introduced and greatly 
prized, and, in 1647, was formally accepted as a Symbol. 

4. In Sweden, John II. (1568-1592) was on the throne. To 
the cruel murder of his insane brother Eric, he added the 
crime of persistent efforts to force Romanism on his people. 
There of course, for the present, the Formula could not hope 
for a hearing. But in 1593, the year after his death, the Coun- 
cil of Upsala determined upon its subscription, and its author- 
ity as a Symbol was still further fixed by later solemn acts of 
official sanction. 

5. In Pomerania, Livonia and Hungary (1573-1597), it was 
accepted as a Symbol. 

III. It is worthy of note that some of the nominally Lu- 
theran Princes and States either 1, never accepted the Formula 
as their Confession, or 2, having accepted it, subsequently with- 
drew. 

1. The city of Zweibriicken which had not received the For- 
mula, went over, in 1588, to the Reformed Church. Anhalt, 
about the same time, the Wetterau, in 1596, and Hesse, in 
1604, made the same change. 

2. In the Electoral Palatinate, Louis had been a devoted 
friend of the work of Concord. On his death, 1583, John Casi- 
mir introduced the Reformed faith. In Brandenburg, in 1614, 
under John Sigismund, an Electoral Resolution was set forth, 
full of coarse abuse of the Formula and of its authors. The 
Formula, nevertheless, continued to be loved and reverenced in 
Brandenburg. In part of Brunswick, the Corpus Julium took 
the place of the Book of Concord. It embraced everything in 
the Book of Concord except the Formula, and had in addition 
a work on doctrines by Chemnitz, and another by Urban 
Regius. In the part of Brunswick which had had the Corpus 
Wilhelminum, the Book of Concord and the Corpus were both 
received as symbolical. The Corpus had all the matter of the 
Book except the Formula. 

IV. As might be anticipated, appearing in so controversial 
an age and involving all the greatest questions of the time, the 
Formula of Concord ivas assailed by the Reformed and the 
Roman Catholics, and by a few nominal Lutherans. Most 






FORMULA — MERITS AND VALUE. 305 

renowned among these earlier assaults were the " Christian Ad- 
monition " by Ursinus, 1581, the Anhalt Opinion, 1581, the 
Reply of the Bremen Preachers, 1581, Ireneeus' Examen, 1581, 
and Ambrose "Wolff's History of the Augsburg Confession, 
1580. To these bitter libels, for they were little else, the three 
great divines, Kirchner, Selneecer, and Chemnitz, by order of 
the three Electors, of the Palatinate, Saxony, and Brandenburg, 
replied. In 1599, appeared theStaffort Book (named from the 
place of its publication,) in which the Margrave of Baden 
assigned his reasons for rejecting the Formula of Concord. 
They were so convincing to his own mind that he persecuted 
his Lutheran subjects for not seeing the force of them. The 
Book was answered by the Wurtemberg and Electoral-Saxon 
theologians, in 1600-1602. 

Several Roman Catholic writers also assailed the Formula. 
The most renowned of these was Cardinal Bellarmin in his 
" Judgment on the Book of Concord," Cologne, 1589. It now 
forms the Fourth Part of his work on the Controversies of his 
time, the' master-piece of the Romish Polemic of the Sixteenth 
Century. It was answered by Hoe of Hoenegg (1605) and 
others. 

In forming an estimate of the merits and value of the 
Formula of Concord, for which we have been prepared by the 
glance taken at its history, the following facts may be worthy 
of consideration : 

I. The controversies which the Formula of Concord was 
meant to settle, had produced incalculable mischief in the 
Church, and absolutely needed settlement, if the Formula of 
Church were to be saved. concord, its 

1. The time was one of mighty agitations and of 
strong convictions. Every question involving doctrine was re- 
garded with an intensity of feeling, which a cold and skeptical 
age is unable to understand. God's least word was something 
for which men would spend their years in battle, would take 
joyfully the spoiling of their goods, would abandon their homes 
for exile, and would ascend the scaffold. They resisted unto 
blood on the division of a hair, if they believed the hair to 
belong to the head of Truth. 

20 



306 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

2. The age was one of vast upheaval, and of rapid recon- 
struction. The superstitions of centuries had been overthrown, 
and the temple of a pure Scriptural faith was to be reared 
upon their ruins. Every man was a polemic and a builder, 
eager to bear part in the wonderful work of the time. It was 
an age of feverish excitement, and many passed through the 
delirium of weak mind overwrought, and fancied their rav- 
ings, inspirations. It was the age of antitheses, in which 
extravagances, b} 7 a law of reaction, rose in hostile pairs. Two 
errors faced each other, and in their conflict trampled down 
the faith which lay prostrate between them. Extremists 
treated truth as if it were habitable only at one pole, and the 
proof that the one pole was untenable at once involved to them 
the necessity of going to the other. 

3. The controversies which followed Luther's death, arrested 
the internal development of the Church, and brought the 
processes of its more perfect constitutional organizing almost to a 
close. The great living doctrines, which made the Reformation, 
were in danger of losing all their practical power in the absorp- 
tion of men's minds in controversies. War, as a necessary 
evil to avoid a greater, just war, as the preliminary to a pure 
peace, is to be defended ; but war, made a trade, treated as 
a good, pursued for its own sake, and interminable, is the curse 
of curses, and much of the controversy of the second half of the 
Sixteenth Century was making a rapid transition to this type 
of strife. The Church was threatened with schisms. Her 
glory was obscured. Her enemies mocked at her. Her children 
were confounded and saddened. Weak ones were turned from 
her communion, sometimes to Zurich, or Geneva, sometimes to 
Rome. Crafty men crept in to make the Lutheran Church 
the protector of heresy. There was danger that the age which 
the Conservative Reformation had glorified, should see that 
grand work lost in the endless dissensions of embittered 
factions. Hence it is that the peculiar characteristic of the 
Formula, on which its necessity and value depend, goes so far 
in solving — what might otherwise seem mysterious — that 
while the larger part of the Lutheran Church received it with 
enthusiasm, some did not accept it. The reason is: that while 



FORMULA OF CONCORD. 307 

the Confessions set forth the faith of our Church, in her an- 
tagonism to the errors outside of her, the Formula, if not ex- 
clusively, yet in the main, is occupied in stating the truth, 
and defending it, over against the errors which had crept into her, 
and corrupted some of her children. Romanism, with its arti- 
fices, had misled some. Fanaticism, sectarianism, and heresy, 
had lured others ; and the ardor of controversy against the 
wrong, had led others, as, for example, the noble and great 
Flaccius, to extravagance and over-statement, which needed 
to be corrected. The Lutheran Church was assailed by open 
war and direct persecution, by intrigue, Jesuitical device, and 
conspiracy. Romanism was active on the one hand, and secta- 
rianism on the other. False brethren, pseudo-unionists, en- 
deavored by tricks of false interpretation to harmonize the 
language of the Augsburg Confession, and of the earlier Con- 
fessions, with their errors. The mighty spirit of Luther had 
gone to its rest. Melanchthon's gentleness sometimes degene- 
rated into utter feebleness of purpose, and alike to the Roman- 
ists and the sectarians he was induced to yield vital points. 

Not jet compacted in her organism, living only by her faith, 
and centred in it, as her sole bond of union, the Lutheran 
Church, in Germany especially, which was the great battle- 
ground, was called to meet an awful crisis. 

No man who knows the facts, will deny that something 
worthy of the responsibility involved in such great and cogent 
issues had to be done. About the means there may be dispute, 
about the end there can be none. The world is very much 
divided between men who do things, and men who show that 
they could have been done better, but the latter class, at least 
admit that they had to be clone. 

II. The Church in this time of trial used the best means for 
the needed end. She availed herself of the labors of the best 
men, who proposed and carried out the best means for the prep- 
aration of the Formula of Concord. 

1. First and greatest among these men, was the Elector 
Augustus, of Saxony, (1533-1588,) son of Duke Henry, the 
Pious. In 1548 he married Anna, daughter of Christian III. 
of Denmark, who was universally beloved for her devoted adhe- 



308 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

rence to Lutheranism, and for her domestic virtues. Augustus 
assisted in bringing about the religious peace of Augsburg, in 
1555, by which the Protestants (Lutherans) obtained important 
rights in common with the Roman Catholics. The fact that 
these benefits were confined to the " adherents to the Augs- 
burg Confession," was one dangerous source of temptation to 
the Reformed. It led men to pretend to adhere to that Con- 
fession, simply to secure the civil benefits connected with it. 

The Elector was in advance of his time in the principles of 
constitutional sovereignty. In an arbitrary age he governed 
by law. He consulted his parliament on all great questions, 
and raised no money by taxation without their advice. His 
edicts were so just that he has been called the Saxon Justinian. 
His subjects regarded him with peculiar love and reverence. 
By his skilful internal administration, he raised his country 
far above the rest of Germany, introducing valuable reforms 
both in jurisprudence and finance, and giving a decided im- 
pulse to education, agriculture, and manufactures. The Dres- 
den Library owes to him its origin, as do also most of its 
galleries of arts and science. 

Augustus bore a part in the Formula of Concord worthy of 
him. To meet the necessary expenses connected with the Form- 
ula, the Elector himself paid a hundred thousand dollars in 
gold. His gifts and efforts were unceasing till the great end was 
attained. Noble and unsuspicious, he had been slow to believe 
in the possibility of the. treachery of the false teachers, whose 
mischievous devices he at length reluctantly came to under- 
stand. The troubles they brought upon the Church whitened 
untimely the Elector's head, but so much the more did he toil 
and pray till the relief from the evil was wrought. While the 
theologians were engaged in conferences, the Elector and his 
noble wife were often on their knees, fervently praying that 
God would enlighten His servants with His Holy Spirit. In 
large measure, to the piety, sound judgment, and indefatigable 
patience of this great prince, the Church owes the Formula 
of Concord.* 

2. Next to the name of Augustus, is to be placed that of 

* Mutter : Cone. Cone. cb. xi. Anton : i. 147, 148. Kollner: 533. 



FORMULA OF CONCORD. 309 

Jacob Andrew, (1528-1590,) Professor and Chancellor of the 
University at Tubingen, and Provost of the Church of St. 
George. He was the pupil, friend, and colleague of Brentius. 
" He was," says one who had no reason to tempt him to ex- 
travagance of eulogy, u a man of excellent genius, of large 
soul, of rare eloquence, of finished skill — a man whose judg- 
ments carried the greatest authority with them."* At the 
age of eighteen he was Dean at Stuttgart — and when, on the 
capture of that city by the Spaniards, the Protestant preachers 
were driven out, Andrese remained, and exercised an influ- 
ence in moderati g the victors. He resigned, at the age of 
twenty, his earliest place as a clergyman, rather than accept the 
Interim, with its concessions to Romanism. His labors as a 
Reformer, both in doctrine and discipline, and afterward as a 
Conservator of the Reformation, were unwearied. He was " in 
journeyings oft," and all his journeyings were directed to the 
good of the Church, and the glory of God. The estimate 
which Planck makes of Andrese, is confessedly an unkind and 
unjust one, yet he says : " Andrese belongs not merely to the 
learned, but to the liberal-minded theologians of his era ... It 
was not in his nature to hate any man merely because that 
man was not orthodox ... It was not only possible for him to 
be just, at least at the beginning, toward those who were in 
error, but he felt a something to which it is not easy to give a 
name, which attracted him to those that erred." " His 
writings," says Hartmann, " over one hundred and fifty in 
number, are among the most interesting memorials of the 
characteristics of the theological effort of the era. He was a man 
of rich erudition, and of unflagging diligence. His eloquence 
bore his hearers resistlessly with it. As a preacher, he was 
full of fire and life. His sermons were pre-eminently practical. 
In negotiations, he was skilful and captivating." 

3. Worthy of association with the venerable names of Augus- 
tus and Andrese, is that of Chemnitz, (1522-1586,) Melanch- 
thon's greatest pupil. At the age of fourteen, already reveal- 
ing " a peculiar genius," he was sent to school at Wittenberg. 

* Weismann. : H. S. N. T. i. 1455. See Andrea;, in Herzog's R. E. i. 310, by 
Hartmann. Planck : Gesch. d. Protest. Theol. vi. 372. 



310 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

There he received his first deep impressions of Luther, whom 
he often heard in the pulpit, in the fullest glory of his power. 
When, nine years later, Chemnitz came to Wittenberg as a 
University student, Luther was living, but the young scholar 
had not yet decided on the theological studies with which his 
renown was to be identified. To these Melanchthon drew him. 
The learning of Chemnitz was something colossal, but it had 
no tinge of pedantry. His judgment was of the highest order. 
His modesty and simplicity, his clearness of thought, and his 
luminous style, his firmness in principle, and his gentleness in 
tone, the richness of his learning and the vigor of his thinking, 
have revealed themselves in such measure in his Loci, his 
Books on the Two Natures of our Lord, and on the True Pres- 
ence, in his Examen of the Council of Trent, his Defence of 
the Formula of Concord, and his Harmony of the Gospels, as 
to render each a classic in its kind, and to mark their author 
as the greatest theologian of his time — one of the greatest theo- 
logians of all time. 

4. The third man in the great theological " triumvirate," 
as its enemies were pleased to call it, was Nicholas Selneccer 
(1530-1592). He too was one of Melanchthon's pupils (1549). 
In 1557 he became Court preacher at Dresden. He was a 
great favorite with the Elector Augustus. His simple, earnest 
Lutheranism led him to defend Hoffman against the persecu- 
tions of the Melanchthonian-Calvinistic party. So little did 
Augustus at that time understand the real character of the 
furtive error against which, in after time, he was to direct the 
most terrible blows, that Selneccer was allowed to resign his 
place, (1561). The exile sought refuge in Jena. There the 
Flaccian troubles met him, and led to his deposition, but 
Augustus recalled him (1568) to a position as Professor at Leip- 
zig, in which he labored on, in stillness, not unobservant, how- 
ever, of the mischiefs connected with the Crypto -Calvinistic 
movements in Saxony. Finally the Elector, with his aid, had 
his eyes opened to these evils, and the movements began which 
terminated in the Formula of Concord. In all these move- 
ments, Selneccer was very active and useful. To him we owe 
the Latin translation of the Formula. Like all who bore part 



FORMULA OF CONCORD. 311 

in that noble work, he was very fiercely assailed. When the 
Reformed party came into power, at the death of Augustus, 
Selneccer was deposed, and not even allowed to remain in 
Leipzig as a private citizen. His family was harassed by 
Crell, and Selneccer himself was reduced to poverty. But such 
a man could not long be crushed. He was called to the super- 
intendence in Hildesheim. Lying upon the bed of sickness, in 
1592, he was summoned to Leipzig, as its Superintendent. 
Crell had been overthrown. Selneccer was borne back, dying 
but vindicated, and breathed his last, in Leipzig, May 24, 1592. 
The Church will sing his precious hymns, some of them set to 
his own melodies, to the end of time, and his memory will be 
treasured as that of one of her great defenders in the time of 
darkness.* 

5. Nor were the three men who were associated with 
Andrese, Chemnitz, and Selneccer, unworthy to bear part with 
these three chiefs in their great work. Chyteaeus (1530-1600), 
of Wiirtemberg, was one of Melanchthon's favorite pupils. 
Professor at Rostock, and Superintendent, renowned for his 
solid judgment, his large culture, his moderation, his deep 
insight into the needs of his time, his desire for the peace of 
the Church, his fame was great in his own communion, but 
was not confined to it. His history of the Augsburg Confes- 
sion is classic in its kind. He was a " great and renowned 
teacher, who had few equals. "f Andrew Musculus (1514- 
1581) was of Saxony. In 1538, he was among the devoted 
young men of the Reformation who surrounded Luther. 
None were more devoted to the great leader than Musculus. 
He says of Luther : " Since the Apostles' time, no greater man 
has lived upon earth. God has poured out all His gifts on 
this one man. Between the old teachers (even Hilary and 
Augustine) and Luther, there is as wide a difference as between 
the shining of the moon and the light of the sun." He was 
an earnest defender of the faith, a fearless and powerful 
preacher, unsparing of wrong, and active in all the works of 
love. Christopher Corner (1518-1594) was of Franconia. 
He was a Doctor and Professor of theology, at Frankfort on 

* Herzog's R. : xiv, 226. (Hollenberg). f Weismann: H. E. i. 1457. 



312 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the Oder, and General Superintendent of the Electorate of 
Brandenburg, and author of a number of learned works. He 
was styled the " Eye of the University."* 

6. "With these chief laborers were associated, at various 
stages, a number of others. In some shape, the whole learning 
and judgment of the Lutheran Church of that era had an 
opportunity of making itself felt in the Formula of Concord. 

7. The flan on which the work was carried through, was of 
the best kind. The plan involved careful preparation of the 
proper documents by the ablest hands, repeated revision, com- 
parison of views, both in writing and by colloquy, the free ex- 
pression of opinion by the various parts of the Church, the 
concurrence of the laity and ministry, and the holding of a 
large number of conventions. So carefully and slowly was the 
work carried on, that in the ten years between its opening and 
its close, the gifts and contrasts of the great men engaged in it 
were brought to the most perfect exercise. Never was a work 
of this kind so thoroughly done. The objections made to the 
plan and its working are of the weakest kind. A General 
Synod of all the Lutheran Churches was impossible, and if it 
could have been convened, could not have sat long enough for 
the needed discussions. The General Consent, which is the 
only thing of value which a General Synod could have given, 
was reached in a far better way. The Formula, though pre- 
pared by a committee of great divines, was the act and deed 
of the Lutheran Church, in its major part. The Formula of 
Concord brought peace and blessing wherever it was honestly 
received. The evil that remained uncorrected by it, remained 
because of the factious opposition to it. All good in this evil 
world is but proximate. Even the divine blessing which 
descends direct upon the world from the hand of God, is marred 
by the passions of bad men, and the infirmities of the good. 
The divine rule of faith does not force upon the unwilling a 
perfect faith, nor should we expect a Confession of faith, how- 
ever pure, to compel the unwilling to a consistent confession. 

IV. The doctrinal result reached in the Formula of Con- 
cord is in conformity with the pure truth of the divine Word. 

* Joclier: Gelebrten Lexic. Vol. i: col. 2106. 



FORMULA OF CONCORD. 313 

The doctrines which the Formula was meant to settle, were 
settled aright. As preliminary to the whole discussion proper, 
the Formula 

1. Lays down, more sharply and clearly than had yet been 
done, the principle, that Holy Scripture is the only and perfect 
rule of faith. The Rale sets forth the credenda — the things that 
are to be believed. 

2. It defines the proper functions of the pure Creed as the 
Church's testimony and Confession of the truth derived from 
the rule. The Greed sets forth the credita — the things that 
are believed. 

In consonance with this Rule, and by necessity in consonance 
with the pure Creeds of the past, the Formula determines over 
against the errors of the time : 

i. In regard to original sin, that it is not the essence, or sub- 
stance, or nature of man, (Flaccius,) but a corruption of that 
nature. 

ii. Of free will, that there are not three efficient causes of con- 
version, of which one is man's will, (Philippistic,) but two only, 
the Holy Spirit, and, as His instrument, the Word. 

Hi. Of justification, that Christ is our righteousness, not 
merely according to his divine nature, (Andrew Osiander,) nor 
merely according to his human nature, (Stancar,) but accord- 
ing to both natures : and that justification is not an infused 
righteousness, (Osiander,) but a pardon of our sins — is not 
physical, but forensic. 

iv. Of good works. Here are rejected the phrases : that good 
works are necessary to salvation, (Major,) and that good works 
are injurious to salvation, (Am sdorf,) and the truth is taught 
First, that good works most surely follow true faith, as the 
good fruit of a good tree ; that it is the necessary duty of regen- 
erate men to do good works, and that he who sins knowingly 
loses the Holy Spirit ; but that, nevertheless, men are neither 
justified nor saved by their good works, but by " grace through 
faith." In a word, justification and its consequent salvation 
are necessary to good works, not the converse. They precede, 
the good works follow. Second : " "We reject and condemn the 
naked phrase, 'that good works are injurious to salvation,' 



314 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

as scandalous and destructive of Christian discipline. That 
the works of a man who trusts in them are pernicious, is not the 
fault of the works themselves, hut of his own vain trust, which, 
contrary to the express Word of God, he puts in them. Good 
works in believers are the indications of eternal salvation. It is 
God's will and express command that believers should do good 
works. These the Holy Spirit works in them. These works 
for Christ's sake are pleasing to God, and to them He hath 
promised a glorious reward in the life that now is, and in 
that which is to come. In these last times it is no less neces- 
sary that men should he exhorted to holy living, should he re- 
minded how necessary it is that they should exercise them- 
selves in good works to show forth their faith and gratitude 
toward God, than it is necessary to beware lest they mingle 
good works in the matter of justification. For by an Epicu- 
rean persuasion about faith, no less than by a Papistical and 
Pharisaic trust in their own works and merits, can men come 
under condemnation."* 

v. Of the Law and the Gospel. When the word Gospel is 
taken in its general and widest sense, as embracing the entire 
teaching of Christ and of His Apostles, it may be rightly said 
that it is a preaching of repentance and remission of sins. But 
when the word Gospel is used in its specific and proper sense, 
so that Moses as the teacher of the Law, and Christ the teacher 
of the Gospel are contrasted, the Gospel is not a preaching of 
penitence, and of reproof of sins, but none other than a most 
joyful message, full of consolation, a precious setting forth 
of the grace and favor of God obtained through the merits of 
Christ. 

vi. Of the third use of the Laic. The Law of God has not only 
a first use, to-wit, to preserve external discipline, and a second 
use, to lead men to the knowledge of their sins, but has also a 
third use, to wit, that it be diligently taught unto regenerate 
men, to all of whom much of the flesh still clings, that they 
may have a sure rule by which their entire life is to be shaped 
and governed. 

vii. Of the Lord's Supper. This was by pre-eminence the 

* Epitome 588-591. Solid. Declarat : 699-708. 



FORMULA OF CONCORD. 315 

question which led to the preparation of the Formula, and it 
is answered with peculiar di tinctness and fulness. The state- 
ments in which it embraces the pure doctrine of the Lord's 
Supper, are these : 

The true body and true blood of our Lord Jesus Christ are 
truly and substantially * present in the Holy Supper, and are 
truly imparted with the bread and wine : 

" They are truly received orally with the bread and wine, 
but not in the manner imagined by the men of Capernaum, 
(John vi. 52,) but in a supernatural and heavenly manner, by 
reason of the Sacramental union, a manner which human sense 
and reason cannot understand. "We use the word ' Spiritual ' 
in order to exclude and reject that gross, fleshly manner of 
presence which the Sacramentarians feign that our Churches 
hold. In this sense of the word spiritual, we also say that the 
body and blood of Christ, in the Holy Supper, are spiritually 
received. . . For though that participation be oral, the manner 
of it is spiritual:" 

They are received by all those who use the Sacrament : by 
the worthy and believing, to consolation and life ; by the unbe- 
lieving, to judgment. 

Hence the Formula rejects and condemns : 

The Popish Transubstantiation ; the Sacrifice of the Mass ; 
the Communion in one kind ; the adoration of the external 
elements of bread and wine in the Supper : 

The errors of the Zwinglians and Calvinists, such as these: 
that the words of the Testament are not to be taken as they 
sound ; that only bread and wine are orally received ; that the 
body of Christ is received merely spiritually, meaning by this 
merely by our faith ; that the bread and wine are only tokens 
by which Christians acknowledge each other ; or that they are 
figures, types, and similitudes of an absent body ; that in the 
Supper, only the virtue, operation, and merit of the absent body 
and blood of Christ are dispensed ; that the body of Christ is 
in such sense shut up in heaven, that it can in no manner 
whatever be on earth when the Holy Supper is observed : 

"All language of a gross, carnal, Capernaitish kind, in 
regard to the supernatural and heavenly mystery : 

* German: wesentlicb. Latin: substantialiter. 



316 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

" That Capernaitish eating of the body of Christ, as if it 
were rent with the teeth and concocted as other food, which 
the Sacramentarians, against the witness of their consciences, 
after so many protestations on out part, maliciously feign, 
that they may bring our doctrine into odium." * 

viii. The Person of Christ. The handling of this great theme 
connects itself closely with the Lord's Supper. The doctrine 
of the person of Christ presented in the Formula rests upon 
the sublimest series of inductions in the history of Christian 
doctrine. In all Confessional history there is nothing to be 
compared with it in the combination of exact exegesis, of dog- 
matic skill, and of fidelity to historical development. Fifteen 
centuries of Christian thought culminate in it. The doctrine 
of the " Communicatio Idiomatum" is indeed but the repetition 
which Christian science in its last maturity presents, of the 
truth that "the Word was made flesh." The Apostle's 
Creed already has it, when it says that God's " only Son, our 
Lord, was conceived, born, suffered, was crucified, dead, buried, 
descended into hell, ascended to the heavens, and sitteth at the 
right hand of the Father Almighty." The " idiomata" are in- 
separable from the natura, the attributes are inseparable 
from the nature, and if there be a " communicatio" of natures, 
there must be a " communicatio " of these attributes ; that is, 
the nature personally assumed must, in that assumption, be par- 
ticipant of the attributes of that nature to whose person it is 
assumed. If an Eternal Being was actually conceived and 
born, if the impassible actually suffered, if the infinite was 
actually fastened to the cross, if the immortal was dead, if Pie 
whom heaven, and the heaven of heavens, cannot contain, 
was hidden in a grave, — if all this be not a riddle, but a 
clear direct statement of doctrine — to accept the Apostles' 
Creed is to accept the presupposition which necessitates the 
reception of the doctrine of the Communicatio Idiomatum. 
If the Apostles' Creed does not mean that Jesus Christ 
is one 'person in whom there is an inseparable connection 
of the natures, so that the one person really does all that is 
done, whether through one nature or through both, and the 

* Epitome, 597-604. Solid. Declaratio. 724-760. 



FORMULA OF CONCORD. 317 

one person really suffers all that is suffered, though it can suffer 
only through the sole nature which is passible — if it means that 
God's only Son did not die, but that another and human 
person died ; if it means that He who was born, and suffered, 
and died, does not sit at the right hand of God, and is not the 
judge of the quick and the dead, but that only another and 
divine person so sits and shall so judge; if, in a word, the 
Apostles' Creed means that Jesus Christ was not God's only 
Son, but that one of His natures was God's Son, and the other 
nature was not God's Son, and that Jesas Christ is not in fact 
one person in two natures, but two persons, then does the 
Apostles' Creed persistently say what it does not mean, and the 
faith Catholic is a chaos of contradictions. The Mcene Creed 
asserts the same great doctrine at an advanced point of scien- 
tific ripeness. The only begotten, the Eternal Son, Maker of 
all things, descends from heaven, is made man, is crucified 
(though infinite), suffers, (though impassible). He is one person, 
to whom is referred all the glory that is divine, and all the shame 
and pain that are human. The Athanasian Creed witnesses 
still further : " Though he be God and man, He is not two, but 
one Christ — one, not by the conversion of Divinity into flesh, 
but by the assumption of humanity to God ; one altogether, 
not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. For 
as the rational soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is 
one Christ, who " (God and man, one Christ,) " suffered for our 
salvation, descended into hell, rose the third day." The Augs- 
burg Confession takes up this thread of witness : " God the Son 
became man, so that there be two natures, the divine and 
human, in unity of person inseparably conjoined, one Christ, 
truly God and truly man, who was born, truly suffered, was 
crucified, dead and buried." 

The Scripture faith represented in these witnesses, the 
Formula sets forth at large in these propositions : 

1. The divine and the human nature are personally united 
in Christ. These natures are not commingled into one sub- 
stance, nor is one changed into the other, but each nature 
retains its essential properties, which can never become the 
properties of the other nature. 



318 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

2. The properties of trie divine nature are, to be essentially, 
naturally, and of itself omnipotent, eternal, infinite, every- 
where present. These neither are, nor can be, the attributes of 
the human nature. The attributes of the human nature 
neither are, nor can be, the attributes of the divine nature. 

3. Those things which are proper to the one nature only, are 
attributed to the other nature not as separate, but to the whole 
person. The divine nature does not suffer, but that person who 
is God, suffers in His humanity. All works and all sufferings are 
attributed not to the nature, but to the person. Each nature 
acts, with the communion of the other, what is proper to it. 

4. The human nature in Christ, because it is personally 
united with the divine nature, beside and above its natural, 
essential, and permanent human properties, has received peculiar, 
supernatural, unsearchable, unspeakable prerogatives of maj- 
esty, glory, and power. 

5. This impartation is not made by any essential or natural 
outpouring of the attributes of the divine nature upon the 
human nature, as if the humanity of Christ could have them 
per se and separated from the divine essence, or as if through 
that communication the human nature of Christ had laid 
aside its natural and essential properties, and was either con- 
verted into the divine nature, or was made equal in itself, or 
per se, to the divine nature by these communicated attri- 
butes, or that the natural and essential properties of each are 
the same, or at least equal. 

6. Iuasmuch as the whole fulness of the Godhead dwells in 
Christ, not as in holy men and angels, but bodily, that is, as in 
its own proper body, that Godhead, with all its majesty, virtue, 
glory, and operation, where and as Christ will, shines forth in 
that human nature; and in it, with it, and through it, reveals 
and exercises its divine virtue, majesty, and efficacy. 

7. Thus there is and abides in Christ one only divine omnipo- 
tence, virtue, majesty, and glory, which is proper to the divine 
nature alone; but this same, which is one only, shines forth and 
fully, yet voluntarily, exerts its power in, and with, and through 
the assumed humanity in Christ.* 

* Formul. Concor. Epit. et Sol. Declarat. art. viii. 



FORMULA OF CONCORD. 319 

8. To make more clear the train of reasoning which results 
in the doctrine of the Communion of properties, certain logi- 
cal presuppositions, and certain definitions should he held in 
mind. In the incarnation it is not two persons, to wit, a 
divine person and a human person, which assume each other, 
as if there were two co-ordinates, which equally took each 
other ; nor does one person, to wit, the divine, take another 
person, to wit, a human person, so that there are two persons 
in the union, the divine person assuming, and the human, per- 
son assumed : but one person, having the divine nature, assumes 
a human nature, so that there results a person in which two 
natures are constituent, but in different ways — the divine nature 
absolutely and independently personal, and the human nature 
secondarily and dependency personal ; the divine nature still 
has, as it ever had, its own intrinsic personality ; the human 
nature is assumed to the divine nature, and neither had, nor 
has any other personality than the one divine personality, 
which it has in virtue of the union. The human nature of 
Christ does not subsist per se, as does the humanity of every 
other one of our race, but subsists in the person of the Son 
of God. Hence, though the natures be distinct, the person is in- 
separable. This complex divine-human person did not exist 
before the union, and cannot exist except in and by the union ; 
and the second nature in the complex person has not ex- 
isted as a nature before or separate from this union, and never 
had, nor has, nor can have, personality apart from that union. 
The Communicatio idiomatum is therefore no giving away, 
so that the giver ceases to have, and the receiver retains for 
itself apart henceforth from the giver, but is the fellowship of 
attributes, which the two natures possess in the one person, 
the divine nature having these attributes intrinsically, and the 
human nature having them in and because of its personal iden- 
tification with the divine nature. In this relation the word 
" communicate " employed actively, means to " confer a joint 
possession," that is, the divine nature confers on the human a 
joint possession of attributes in the person. The word " com- 
municate," used as a neuter verb, means to " have something 
in common with another ;" the human nature has the attri- 



320 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

butes iu common with the divine nature, but derivatively only 
in and through its personal union with the divine. The 
" Communication, or Communion of properties " is therefore 
the participation of these properties by the two natures in 
common in the one person, the divine nature having the attri- 
butes intrinsically, the human nature having them through 
the divine and dependency. Though the Logos unincarnate 
was a proper person before he took a human nature, the per- 
sonality of the Logos incarnate involves the two natures. That 
person which is not both human and divine is not Christ's 
person, and that act or presence which is not both human and 
divine is not Christ's act, nor Christ's presence. 

The Errors rejected by the Formula are, on the one hand, 
all that involve a confusion or transmutation of the natures; 
the presence of Christ's human nature in the same way as 
deity, as an infinite essence, or by its essential properties ; all 
equalizing of its essential properties with those of God, and all 
ideas of its local extension in all places. The Errors, on the 
other hand, are, that the human nature of Christ was alone in 
the redemptory suffering and work, with no fellowship with it 
on the part of the Son of God ; that the presence of Christ with 
us on earth is only according to His divinity, and that his 
human nature has no part whatever in it ; that the assumed 
human nature in Christ has, in very deed and reality, no com- 
munication nor fellowship with, or participation in the divine 
virtue, wisdom, power, majesty and glory, but that it has 
fellowship with the divinity in bare title and name. 

IX. Op the Descent of Christ into Hell. The treatment 
of this difficult point is a model of comprehensiveness, brevity, 
simplicity, and modesty. The doctrine may be arranged as a 
reply to these questions : 

1. Who descended ? Christ, Son of God, our Lord, therefore 
divine ; who was crucified, dead and buried, therefore human ; 
consequently, not the body alone, nor the soul alone, nor the 
divinity alone, but Christ, the whole person, God and man. 
This is the precise affirmation of the Apostles' Creed : " God's 
only Son, our Lord, who was conceived of the Virgin Mary, 
born, suffered, died, descended into hell." 



FORMULA OF CONCORD. 321 

2. When? Not before his death, (Calvin and TJrsinus,) nor 
at his burial, as identical with it, (Oecolampadius, Beza,) 
but after his burial. 

So the order of the Apostles' Creed : " Dead, buried, He de- 
scended into hell." 

3. Whither ? Not into a metaphorical hell, of pains of soul, 
or of pains like those of the damned, (Calvin, TJrsinus,) not 
into the grave, (Oecolampadius, Beza,) nor the limbus pa- 
trum, a subterranean place of souls, (Bellarmin, and the Roman- 
ists generally, with some of the Fathers,) but into hell. 

4. Why ? To give to our Lord a glorious victory and tri- 
umph, to overcome Satan, and to overthrow the power of hell 
for all believers. 

5. How? How it was done we may not curiously search, 
but reserve the knowledge of it for another world, when this 
and other mysteries shall be uncovered, which in this life sur- 
pass the power of our blind reason, and are to be received in 
simple faith. 

No Antitheses are added to this Article. 

X. Of Ecclesiastical Ceremonies ; the Adiaphor^i. Usages, 
which are neither commanded nor forbidden in God's word, 
are in themselves no part of divine worship proper ; in them 
the Church may make such changes as are needed, due regard 
being had to prudence and forbearance ; but such changes 
may not be made to avoid persecution, nor so as to impair the 
clearness of the Church's testimony against the Papal religion. 
No Church should condemn another because of unlikeness of 
ceremonies, if they agree in doctrine and in all its parts, and in 
the legitimate- use of the sacraments. 

XI. Of Predestination. " For this article," says Kollner, 
" the Lutheran Church owes an eternal debt of gratitude to 
the authors of the Formula." The doctrine, it is true, had 
not been the subject of controversy within the Lutheran 
Church itself, but it was so vitally connected with the whole 
range of theological truth, that it was wise to set it forth in its 
Scriptural fulness. 

The doctrine may be summed up in these theses : 

1. " The foreknowledge or prevision of God, is that whereby 

21 



322 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

he foresees and foreknows all things before they come to pass, 
and extendeth to all creatures, whether they be good or evil."* 

2. " Predestination or election is the purpose of the divine 
will, and the eternal decree, whereby God out of pure mercy 
hath chosen in Christ unto eternal life, and hath determined to 
save all those who truly believe in Christ, and endure in that 
faith unto the end." 

3. " The whole doctrine concerning the purpose, counsel, will 
and ordination of God (all things, to wit, which pertain to our 
redemption, calling, justification, and salvation), is to be em- 
braced together in the mind ... to wit, that God in his 
counsel and purpose hath decreed these things following : 

" That the human race should be truly redeemed, and should 
be reconciled unto God through Christ, who, by his innocence 
and most perfect obedience, by his passion and most bitter 
death, hath merited for us that righteousness which avails 
before God, and life everlasting : 

" That the merits of Christ and his blessings should, through 
the Word and Sacraments, be brought, offered, and apportioned 
unto us : 

"He hath decreed also, that by His Holy Spirit, through 
the Word announced, heard, and remembered, he will be effi- 
cacious in us, to bend our hearts to true repentance, and to 
preserve us in tru£ faith : 

" It is His eternal purpose, that all who truly repent, and em- 
brace Christ in true faith, shall be justified, received into favor, 
and adopted as sons and heirs of eternal life : 

" And they that are justified by faith he will sanctify in true 
love, as the Apostle testifies, (Ephes. i. 4 :) 'According as he hath 
chosen us in Him, before the foundation of the world, that we 
should be holy and without blame before him in love: ' 

" God hath also determined in His eternal counsel, that in 
their manifold and various weaknesses he will defend them 
that are justified, against the world, the flesh, and the devil, 
will lead and direct them in their way, and if they should fall, 
will uphold them with His hand, that under the cross and in 
temptation they may receive strong consolation, and may be 
preserved unto life. 

* Formula Concordiae, 728. 



FORMULA OF CONCORD. 323 

" It is His eternal decree that He will carry forward and 
strengthen, and preserve unto the end that good work which 
He hath begun in them, if only they steadfastly lean upon His 
Word as their staff, beseech his aid with ardent prayers, con- 
tinue in God's grace, and well and faithfully employ the gifts 
they have received of Him : 

" God hath also decreed that those whom He hath chosen, 
called and justified, He will, in another and eternal life, save 
and endow with glory everlasting."* 

4. " Many receive the Word of God in the beginning with 
great joy, but afterward fall away. The cause thereof is not 
that God is not willing to give His grace to enable them to be 
steadfast in whom He hath begun that good work, for this is in 
conflict with the words of St. Paul, (Phil. i. 6 ;) but the true 
reason of their falling away, is that they again turn themselves 
away from God's holy command wilfully, and that they grieve 
and provoke the Holy Spirit, that they again entangle them- 
selves in the pollutions of this world, and garnish again the 
guest-chamber of their heart for Satan. "f 

5. " God hath from eternity most exactly and surely foreseen, 
and knoweth, who of the number of them that are called will 
or will not believe in Christ, who of them that are converted 
will or will not remain steadfast in the faith, and who of them 
that have fallen into grievous sins will return, and who of 
them will perish in their wickedness. . . But because the 
Lord hath reserved such secret things for his own wisdom 
alone, nor hath revealed anything of this matter in His Word, 
much less hath commanded us to occupy our imaginations 
with these mysteries, but rather hath forbidden us to take 
them in hand : it doth not become us to give liberty to our 
imaginations, to establish anything, argue thereon, or wish to 
search out those most hidden things, but we should rest in his 
revealed Word to which He hath referred us." J 

6. "If any one set forth the doctrine of the eternal predes- 
tination of God in such manner that distressed minds can 
derive no consolation from it, but rather occasion of despair is 
given unto them, or so that impenitent persons are confirmed 

* Formula Concordia?, 802. f Ibid. 809. % Ibid. 812. 



324 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

in their security, wickedness and wilfulness, then nothing is 
more sure than that this article is not taught by him according 
to the Word and will of God." * 

7. " Not only the preaching of repentance, hut the promise 
of the Gospel is also universal, that is, belongs to all men. 
For this reason Christ hath commanded ' that repentance and 
remission of sins should be preached among all nations ; ' 
' God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son ; ' 
4 Christ taketh away the sin of the world ; ' ' He gave his flesh 
for the life of the world ; ' ' His blood is the propitiation for 
the sins of the whole world : ' Christ says : ' Come unto Me 
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
rest.' ' God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might 
have mercy upon all.' ' The Lord is not willing that any 
should perish, but that all should come to repentance.' ' The 
same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him.' 
c The righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ 
unto all, and upon all them that believe.' ' And this is 
the will of the Father that every one which believeth 'on 
Christ should have everlasting life.' And Christ wisheth that 
in general unto all to whom repentance is preached, this promise 
also of the Gospel should be set forth. "f 

8. " This calling of God, which he offereth to us through the 
word of the Gospel is not feigned and pretended, but God by 
that calling revealeth to us His will, to wit, that in those whom 
He calls in this way He wisheth to be efficacious through His 
word, that they may be enlightened, converted and saved." $ 

9. " The reason why many are called but few chosen, is not 
the divine calling, which is made through the Word, as if 
God's intent were this: 'I indeed call outwardly to a partici- 
pation in my heavenly kingdom, all to whom that word is set 
forth : but it is not the thought of my heart that all should be 
seriously called to salvation, but that a few only should be so 
called ; for my will is this, that a larger part of those whom I 
call through the Word, shall neither be enlightened nor con- 
verted, although through my Word, by which they are called, 
I- signify my mind unto them otherwise,' for this would be to 

* Formula Concordia, 728. f Ibid. 804. + Ibid. 805. 



FORMULA OF CONCORD. 325 

impute to God contradictory wills, as if He who is the eternal 
truth, were divided against Himself, or spake one thing and 
designed another."* 

10. " As God in His eternal counsel hath ordained, that the 
Holy Spirit shall, through the Word, call, enlighten, and con- 
vert the elect, and that He will justify and eternally save all 
those who embrace Christ in true faith : so also in that same 
counsel He hath decreed, that He will harden, reprobate, and 
consign to eternal damnation those who being called through 
the Word put it away from them, and resist the Holy Spirit, 
(who wisheth through the Word efficaciously to work and to 
be efficacious in them,) and obstinately remain steadfast in that 
rebellion." f 

11. " The cause of this despising of the Word is not the fore- 
knowledge or predestination of God, but the perverse will of 
man, which refuses or wrests that mean and instrument of the 
Holy Spirit which God offers to man in that He calls him, and 
which resists the Holy Ghost . . as Christ sayeth : ' How often 
would I have gathered together and ye would not.' " % 

Finally, x . The Formula treats of carious factions, heresies 
and sects, which have never embraced the Augsburg Confession. 
The Errors enumerated and rejected are those of the Anabap- 
tists, " who are divided into a number of sects, of whom some 
defend more, some fewer Errors ; " of Schwenkfeldians ; of the 
New Arians ; and of the New Antitrinitarians, who, as here 
characterized, are either Tritheists, or Subordinationists. 

Such is the doctrine, such are the antitheses of the Formula 
of Concord. They are in every part consonant with Holy 
Scripture, with the General Creeds, and with the earlier Con- 
fessions of the Lutheran Church. The Formula is but the old 
doctrine repeated, systematized, applied and defended. The 
chief charge against the Formula of Concord is that it caused 
a complete separation between the Lutheran and the Znoinglian- 
Calvinistic Churches. This is a great mistake. The cause of 
the separation was the divergent convictions and principles on 
both sides. The Formula did not originate a single one of the 
questions it settled. But the Formula of Concord was not 

* Formula Concordiae, 807. f Ibid, 808. % Ibid > 809 - 



326 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

even the occasion of the separation. So far was this from being 
the case, that after the controversies which necessarily attended 
the first appearance of the Formula of Concord, a far healthier 
and kindlier feeling prevailed between the two Communions. 
Before the Formula, many things existed in their relations 
which tended to demoralize the Reformed Church, as much as 
it did to disorganize and distress the Lutheran Church. 
Truthful separation is far better than dishonest union, and two 
Churches are happier, and more kindly in their mutual rela- 
tions, when their differences are frankly confessed, than when 
they are clouding with ambiguities and double meanings the 
real divergencies. And even if two Communions are in down- 
right conflict, it is better that the battles should be on the sides 
of clearly marked lines, or well understood issues — should 
be the struggles of nationalities, under the laws of war rather 
than the savage, ill-defined warfare of the border, and of the 
bush. That the open transitions to the Reformed side of a few 
nominally Lutheran States were really occasioned by the For- 
mula, is not true. Most of these movements were those of po- 
litical force, in the face of the bitter regrets of the people, ^"o 
State which honestly held the Augsburg Confession went over 
to the Reformed. If the Formula uncovered and shamed out 
of the pretence of Lutheranism any who were making a mere 
cloak of the Augsburg Confession, it is something to love it for. 
It is charged upon the Formula of Concord that it repressed 
the Melanchthonian tendency in our Church, and substituted the 
fossilization of the letter and of the dogma for the freedom of 
the spirit and of the Word. This again is not true. It is not 
true that the spirit within our Church which the Formula en- 
countered, was that of genuine freedom. It was rather the spirit 
which was making a real bondage under the pretences of lib- 
erty, a spirit which was tolerant only to vagueness and laxity, 
not to well-defined doctrinal conviction. It was a spirit which 
softened and relaxed the Church when she needed her utmost 
vigor and firmness. It was a spirit of false deference to anti- 
quity and human authority over against the Word. It yielded 
now to a false philosophizing, now to the Reformed, now to 
Rome. It tried to adjust some of the most vital doctrines to 



FORMULA OF CONCORD. 327 

the demands of Rationalism on the one side, of Romanism on 
the other. In the " Interims," it came near sacrificing all that 
had been gained in the struggle with the Papacy. It confessed 
in effect, that the principle of the Reformation could reach no 
definite result, that the better path it claimed to open, led for- 
ever toward something which could never be reached. So far 
as Melanchthon's great gifts were purely and wisely used, the 
Formula fixed these results in the Church. It did not over- 
throw the Confessional works in which Melanchthon's greatest 
glory is involved. It established the Confession and Apology 
forever as the Confession of the Church as a whole. The Book 
of Concord treats Melanchthon as the Bible treats Solomon. 
It opens wide the view of his wisdom and glory, and draws the 
veil over the record of his sadder days. Melanchthon's tem- 
perament was more exacting than Luther's. He made his 
personal gentleness a dogmatism and demanded impossibilities. 
The time of the deluge had come, — a world had to be purified ; 
and it was useless to send out the dove till the waters had 
passed away. The era of the Reformation could not be an 
era of Melanchthonian mildness. To ask this, is to ask 
that war shall be peace, that battles shall be fought with 
feathers, and that armies shall move to the waving of olive 
branches. The war of the Formula was an internal defensive 
war ; yet, like all civil wars, it left behind it inevitable wounds 
which did not at once heal up. The struggle in Churches or 
States, which ends in a triumph over the schism of their own 
children, cannot for generations command the universal sym- 
pathy, w T ith which the overthrow of a common foe is regarded. 
All England is exultant in the victories over France, but even yet 
there are Englishmen, to whom Charles is a martyr, and Crom- 
well a devil. The war of the Formula was fought for great 
principles : it was bravely and uncompromisingly fought ; but 
it was fought magnanimously under the old banner of the 
Cross. It was crowned with victory, and that victory brought 
peace. 

Most surely will time bring all that love our Church to feel, 
that without the second war and the second peace, the war 
and peace of Conservation, the richest results of the first, the 



328 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

war of Reformation, would have been lost. Hopeless division, 
anarchy, ruin and absorption, were the perils from which the 
Formula of Concord saved our Church. The loss of Germany 
w^ould have been the loss of Lutheranism throughout the 
world, and with it the loss of Protestantism itself. 

Feeling the responsibility of their position, not without con- 
sciousness of the greatness of the work they had done, the 
authors of the Formula of Concord humbly, yet joyously, closed 
it with these solemn words : " "Wherefore, in the presence of 
Almighty God, and of Christ's whole Church, both of the 
living, and of the generations which shall follow us, it has 
been our purpose to testify, that of the Articles in Contro- 
versy, the Declaration we have now made, and none other, is 
in very deed our doctrine, faith and Confession. In this Con- 
fession, by God's grace, we are ready with fearless hearts to 
appear and render an account before the judgment-seat of Jesus 
Christ. Against this Declaration we will speak nothing, and 
write nothing, openly or secretly, but, the Lord helping us, 
will remain steadfast in it to the end. In testimony thereof, 
w T ith mature deliberation, in the fear of God, and calling upon 
His name, we have with our own hands set oar names to this 
Declaration." 



VIII. 

SOME MISTAKES IN REGARD TO THE HISTORY AND 
DOCTRINES OF THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN 
CHURCH. 

A REVIEW OF DR. SHEDD'S HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE.* 



IT cannot be claimed for Dr. Shedd/s book that it is the pro- 
foundest and most exhaustive history of Christian doctrine, 
but it may be asserted with justice that it is eminently pleasant 
and readable. But if it be not as profound as is conceivable, 
it is as profound as its geueral aim permits it to be, and if it 
does not always exhaust its subjects, it never exhausts its 
readers. We cannot concede to Dr. Shedd all that he seems to 
claim, and we are sure with perfect sincerity, in regard to the 
originality, or even the self-origination of his method. It 
varies so little from that of some of the German works to 
which he confesses his obligations, that without presupposing 
their plan,we can hardly conceive that he would have fallen 
upon his. He investigates " each of the principal subjects by 
itself, starting from the first beginnings of scien- Drghedd'sHis- 
tific reflection upon it, and going down to the tory of Doctrine, 
latest forms of statement." Dr. Shedd accepts, at the very 
out-start, the idea of doctrinal development, and one of the 
best features of his book and of its plan is, that he so clearly 
and satisfactorily exhibits the processes and results of this 
development. Revelation is unchanging, but the science 

* History of Christian Doctrine. By William G. T. Shedd, D. D. In two 
Volumes. New York : Charles Scribner. 

329 



330 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

which classifies, and adjusts in their due relations to each 
other its doctrines, which sees each in the light of all, and 
under whose guidance, to use the vigorous words of Dr. 
Shedd, "the objections of the heretic or latitudinarian only 
elicit a more exhaustive, and, at the same time, more guarded 
statement, which carries the Church still nearer to the sub- 
stance of revelation and the heart of the mystery," this science, 
in its own nature, must have growth. The man who takes up 
the Bible now, without reference to what the minds of genera- 
tions have done towards its elucidation, is exactly as foolish as 
the man who would effect to take up any great branch of science 
without regard to what has been done before. The botanist's 
Rule of faith was Eve's carpet and canopy, but not until Linnseus 
was the botanist's Confession of faith set forth. Dr. Shedd 
has well stated and well guarded the doctrine of development. 
He shows that development is not creation, nor improvement. 
Botany neither creates the plants, nor improves upon the facts 
connected with them; but it develops into a more perfect 
knowledge of them, and out of that higher knowledge into a 
more perfect science. The plants themselves furnish the Eule 
of the botanist's faith, but the Systema Plantarum is its creed. 
The science develops, but it develops toward the absolute truth, 
not away from it ; and the more perfect the doctrinal develop- 
ment is, the nearer has it come to the ideal of God's mind, 
which has its image in His word. 

Much of Dr. Shedd's mode of thinking is certainly not the 
outgrowth of anything characteristic of New England. The 
attitude of the original extreme Puritanism to the history of 
the ancient Church, was very different from his. Puritanism, 
as separatism, had no history for it, and hence it repudiated 
history. It has lived long enough to have a history, to recede 
from its extreme positions, and to receive new elements of life ; 
and Dr. Shedd's book is one among many evidences that 
Puritanism seeks a history, and begins to appreciate its value 
— the value not only of its own history, but of the history of 
the whole Church. After all the diversities and terrible 
internal strifes of the nominally Christian Church, there is not 
any great part of it that can safely ignore absolutely any 



DE. SHEWS HIS TOBY OF DOCTRINE. 331 

other great part. Puritanism cannot say, even to Romanism, 
" I have no need of thee," still less can it say so to the grand 
portions of evangelical Protestantism. Dr. Shedd's book shows 
that he has escaped from many of the narrownesses which ob- 
scured the genuine glory of Puritanism, for genuine glory it 
has, and a great deal of it. No book of which we know, ema- 
nating from a New England mind, shows as much acquaint- 
ance as this book does with the character and weight of 
Lutheran theology. 

Nevertheless, one of the greatest weaknesses of the book is 
its lack of a thorough and independent knowledge of our 
Church. Dr. Shedd, especially in his exhibitions of the 
Patristic and English views, shows independent research ; but 
in the treatment of the Lutheran theology he gives unmistak- 
able evidence that his reading has been comparatively slight 
among the masters, especially the old masters of our Church. 
He has trusted too much to manuals, and yet has hardly used 
them enough. He exhibits views as characteristic of Calvin- 
istic divines, or of the Calvinistic symbols, which are mere 
resonances of the Lutheran theology, whose glory it is, first to 
have brought into the distinct sphere of science the great 
Biblical truths of which we speak. The scientific development 
of the doctrine of the redemptory character of the active obe- 
dience of Christ, is due to the Lutheran theologians. The true 
and profound views of the person of Christ, which Dr. Shedd 
presents in the language of Hooker and Hopkins, though in- 
volved in the Athanasian Creed, received their full scientific shape 
from the Christologdcal labors and Controversies of the Lutheran 
Church in the Sixteenth Century. The Lutheran Church has 
been the ultimate spring of almost all the profound theological 
thought of modern times. Even Calvinism, without it, would 
not have been. Calvin was saved, we might almost say created, 
by being first Lutheranized. 

It is refreshing to find in Dr. Shedd's book so much that is 
sound, and deep, and old ; but which will, to the mass of think- 
ers in New England, seem like novelty. Nothing, indeed, is 
so novel in New England as the old theology, in some of its 
aspects. How, for example, must the doctrine of the true sac- 



332 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ramental presence mystify them ? Dr. Shedd, perhaps wisely, 
has spared them this. There are, indeed, great departments 
of the history of doctrine on which he does not enter. He 
gives us, for example, nothing direct on the doctrines of the 
Church, of Baptism and of the Lord's Supper ; yet these in- 
volve many of the most vital questions of the hour. On the 
other hand, he has gone, we think, beyond the bound, in devo- 
ting a whole book to the history of Apologetics, and another to 
an account of Symbols. He has done it so well, however, that 
we not only forgive him, but thank him for it. 

One very interesting feature of the book is its presenta- 
tion of many of the Calvinistic doctrines in their coinci- 
dence with the Lutheran; as, for instance, in the paragraphs 
on the " Lutheran-Calvinistic Theory of Original Sin," " The 
Lutheran-Calvinistic Theory of Regeneration ; " and on other 
points. Dr. Shedd seems to fear that " the chief criticism that 
may be made upon the work is, that it betokens subjective 
qualities unduly for an historical production." On the con- 
trary, we think, that so far as is consistent with fidelity to 
conviction, his book is remarkably free from the offensive 
obtrusion of merely personal opinions. There is not a page in 
it whose tone is unworthy of the refined candor of a Christian 
gentleman. We are struck, indeed, as we have said, with 
what we regard as mistakes in reference to the Lutheran Church, 
but the statements of Dr. Shedd are made in a tone which re- 
lieves them of all asperity ; and he knows so much more about 
our Church than most writers of English who have attempted 
to describe it, that we feel that his mistakes are involuntary. 
They are fewer than might have been anticipated. Dr. Shedd 
speaks of the Augsburg Confession as " the symbol which was 
to consolidate the new evangelical Church into one external 
unity, in opposition to that of Rome." " But the doctrines of 
sin and redemption had been misstated by the Papal mind at 
Trent ; and hence the principal part of the new and original 
work of the Lutheran divines was connected with these." This 
collocation might mislead the reader, who forgets that the 
Augsburg Confession was prepared fifteen years before the first 
convention of the Council of Trent. Dr. Shedd speaks of the 



ORIGIN OF THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 333 

Augsburg Confession as ".the first in time " among our sym- 
bols. Twelve pages after, he corrects himself by mentioning 
that the Two Catechisms were published in 1529, a year before 
the Augsburg Confession. Dr. Shedd says appreciatively : 
" The general tone and spirit of the first creed of the Reforma- 
tion is a union of firmness and mildness. The characteristics 
of Luther and Melanchthon, the two minds most concerned in 
its formation, are harmoniously blended in it." 

In Dr. Shedd's interesting volumes, we naturally look with 
most interest for that which bears upon our own Church. His 
remarks upon the origin, character and supposed imperfections 
of the Augsburg Confession, may require some examination. 
Dr. Shedd speaks of the Augsburg Confession as a The ori . of 
public and received Confession of the common the Augsburg 
faith of the Protestant Church. Taking the word 
" Protestant " in its original and strictly historical sense, this 
is true, but it is not, nor was it ever the received Confession 
of all whom we now call "Protestants." Two counter Con- 
fessions, Zwingli and the Tetrapolitan, were prepared for 
the Diet of Augsburg. There are some defects too in Dr. 
Shedd's statement of the origin of the Confession. He says : 
"The process began with a commission from John, Prince of 
Saxony, given in March, 1530, to his favorite theologians, 
Luther, Justus Jonas, Bugenhagen, and Melanchthon, to pre- 
pare a series of succinct and comprehensive articles to be dis- 
cussed and defended as the Protestant form of doctrine." Dr. 
Shedd's statement in this sentence is defective, for it does not 
furnish the reason of this commission, and it seems inaccurate 
in making this commission the beginning of the process which 
was completed in the laying of the Confession before the Diet 
of Augsburg. The ultimate ground-work of the Augsburg 
Confession is the Fifteen Articles of Marburg, which were the 
result of the conference between the Zwinglians and Lutherans, 
October, 1529. These are more closely related to the Seventeen 
Articles of Schwabach than the Schwabach Articles are to the 
Augsburg Confession. The real immediate beginning of the 
process was in the summons of the Diet by the Emperor 
Charles V., dated January, 1530, in which he stated as one of 



334 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the objects of the Diet, the comparison and harmonizing of the 
conflicting views which were dividing the Church, and to this 
end required of the evangelical princes a statement of their 
doctrine. The Elector of Saxony, the leader of the Evangelical 
States, foresaw that for any such comparison a clear and judi- 
cious statement in writing, both as to doctrines and abuses, 
would be necessary on the part of the Protestants, (Lutherans,) 
and gave the command to the four theologians, to prepare the 
needed statement, and present it to him in eight days at Tor- 
gau. The shortness of the time allotted is the solution of the 
fact, that " these theologians joined upon the work that had 
already been performed by one of their number," though it is 
not strictly accurate to say that the work had been performed 
by one of their number, as Luther says, in so many words, in 
his Preface to these Articles, that they were not his exclusive 
work.* His co-laborers in preparing them were Melanchthon, 
Jonas, Osiander, Brentius and Agricola. " In the preceding 
year, (1529,) Luther, at a Convention of Protestants, at Schwa- 
bach, had prepared seventeen Articles, to be adopted as the 
doctrinal bond of union. These Articles, this body of Com- 
missioners appointed by Prince John adopted, and, having 
added to their number some new ones that had respect to cer- 
tain ecclesiastical abuses, presented the whole to the Crown 
Prince, in Torgau, in March, 1530. Hence, they are sometimes 
denominated the '-Articles of Torgau .' " The reader must not 
suppose, as he might, that " Prince John" was one person, and 
" the Crown Prince " another. We do not know why Dr. 
Shedd prefers the title " Prince " to the more definite and his- 
torical term Elector, unless as a resident of !New York, there 
is special music to his ear in the style and title of that old time 
pet of the Empire State, " Prince John " Van Buren. And 
why does he style the Elector the " Crown Prince ? " 

In the nomenclature of the best recent writers on the history 
of the Augsburg Confession, the title " Schwabach Articles " 
is confined to those of the 27th of October, 1529, and the name 
of " Torgau Articles " is restricted to the Articles prepared by 

* Sie sind nit von mir allein gestellet. The whole are given in Cyprian's His- 
toria, (Gotha, 1730,) Beilage, p. 159. Corpus Reformatorum, xxvi. 138. 



ORIGIN OF THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION. 335 

the four theologians at "Wittenberg, March, 1530, and pre- 
sented at Torgau. Dr. Shedd goes on to say : " This draft of 
a Confession was then brought before the Imperial Diet, at 
Augsburg, for examination and adoption. Here it received 
revision, and some slight modifications, under the leadership 
of Melanchthon, who was present at the discussion before the 
Diet, and was aided during the progress of the debate, by the 
advice and concurrence of Luther, then at Coburg, in a free 
and full correspondence. The Symbol having been formed in 
this manner, was subscribed by the princes and authorities of 
the Protestant interest, and in their name publicly read in 
German, before the imperial assembly, and a copy, in both 
German and Latin, presented to the Emperor. The Augsburg 
Confession thus became the authorized doctrinal basis of Pro- 
testantism in Germany." In this account we are compelled to 
say there is more than one mistake. Neither this draft of a 
Confession, nor any other draft, was ever brought before the 
Imperial Diet, either for examination and adoption, or for any 
other purpose. Of course, therefore, it received no revision 
there, or modification. None of the processes connected with 
the formation of the Confession, took place in the presence of 
the Diet. The Diet knew nothing of its contents up to the 
time of the reading of it. After the Elector had received, at 
Torgau, the Schwabach, and the Torgau Articles proper, he 
started for Augsburg, leaving, for prudential reasons, Luther 
at Coburg, with the understanding that nothing final should 
be done without consulting him. The Elector and his retinue 
entered Augsburg, May 2nd, and remained there. During the 
rest of the month, and for the first half of June, the secular 
and ecclesiastical dignitaries were gathering for the Diet. In 
this interval, from May 26th to June 20th, the Emperor not 
having arrived, and no sessions of the Diet having taken place, 
Melanchthon, with the aid and advice of the other theologians, 
and of all the representatives of the Evangelical interest, given 
in, sentence by sentence, did the work of composing the Con- 
fession which was to be submitted to the Diet, laying, as the 
ground-work, the Articles of Schwabach and Torgau, but doing 
far more than would be generally understood in Dr. Shedd's 



336 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION 

statement, that these Articles " received revision and some 
slight modifications." This Confession, when finished, was 
sent by the Elector to Luther, by whom, without a solitary 
change, or suggestion of a change, it was approved, May 15th, 
one month previous to the entrance of the Emperor into Augs- 
burg. The first session of the Diet was held June 20th, and it 
was determined that the religious questions should be taken 
up first. 

On the 23d of June, the Protestant Princes signed the Con- 
fession. On the 24th they received permission to present the 
Confession on the following day. The material labor on the 
Augsburg Confession was finished and approved by Luther 
more than a month before the Diet met. In the intervening 
weeks, Melanchthon elaborated the style, and gave higher 
finish to the form of the Confession, and before the Diet met, 
the Confession was finished. It was then no draft, but the 
perfect Confession, which was in the hands of the Confessors, 
when the Diet met ; but neither draft nor Confession was ever 
submitted for adoption to the Diet. It received, and could in 
the nature of the case receive, no revision or " slight modifica- 
tion before the Diet." Melanchthon was not present at the 
discussion before the Diet, not only, although this would seem 
to be enough, because there was no such discussion, but he was 
not, in fact, present in the Diet at any discussions of any sort. 
Melanchthon did not hear the Augsburg Confession read. 
Justus Jonas was the only evangelical theologian who heard 
the Confession read, an honor which may have been thought 
due to his juristic skill, or to his official position. There was 
no discussion of the Articles of the Confession before the Diet, 
and no debate in regard to them to make any progress, to be 
shared in by Melanchthon, or to require the aid of Luther. 
The Symbol was not formed in this manner, as we have seen, 
but was finished before the Diet began. Equally mistaken is 
the statement, that Melanchthon entered upon a detailed refu- 
tation of the Eomish Confutation, "so far as he could recon- 
struct the document from his own recollection on hearing it 
read," as he did not hear it read, and was at first entirely de- 
pendent on " notes that had been taken by others who were 



THE CONFESSION NOT ROMANIZING. 337 

present at the reading." Dr. Shedd has evidently either been 
following very inaccurate guides, or, for some reason, has mis- 
understood his authorities on these points. His bibliography 
of the literature of the History of Symbols does not, indeed, 
seem to indicate that he has made it a matter of very thorough 
study ; for there is no mention made in it of works of the 
very highest rank,, as for example, of Garpzov, Baumgarten, 
Boehmer, and Semler, among the older writers ; of Plank, 
Marheineke, Tittmann and Marsh, in the first quarter of the 
present century ; of Mohler and Kollner, whose merits are of 
the most distinguished order ; or of Matthes and Rudolph 
Hoffman, and others, who, as good writers of the most recent 
date, deserve mention. The selectest bibliography ought to 
embrace all of these. The truth is, however, that the separate 
History of Symbols is not more properly in place in a history 
of Doctrines, than a history of Polemics, of Patristics, or of 
Biblical Interpretations would be, for all these are, incidentally, 
sources of illustration of the History of Doctrine. Each of 
them is, moreover, comprehensive enough for a distinct treat- 
ment. Dr. Shedd has made his plan too comprehensive, and 
necessarily renders it relatively weaker at certain points. The 
plan which Dr. Holmes has rendered so renowned, of making 
the weakest point as strong as the rest, is exquisite in theory, 
but difficult in practical realization. 

" The Augsburg Confession," says Dr. Shedd, " is divided 
into two parts : the one, positive and didactic in The Augsburg 
its contents; the other, negative and polemic." S^anizing! 
The Augsburg Confession, as it is usually and was consubstautia- 
most anciently divided, consists of the Preface, Chief f the Lutheran 
Articles of Faith, The Articles on Abuses, and the church. 
Epilogue. Kollner makes a fifth part of the Epilogal Prologue, 
which separates and unites the Articles on Abuses. Nevertheless, 
Dr. Shedd very properly divides it, in a general way, into two 
parts. The first of the chief parts, however, in addition to its 
positive statements of doctrine, has negative antitheses on the 
doctrines of the Trinity, Original Sin, the Efficacy of the Min- 
istry, Baptism, the Lord's Supper, Repentance, the Use of 
Sacraments, of Civil matters, the Second Coming of Christ, 
22 



338 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

and Free "Will. On a number of the points, arguments are urged, 
Scripture is quoted and Patristic authorities appealed to, and in 
the Article on Good "Works, the prevailing character is entirely 
Apologetic. The Doctrine of Good "Works had been stated in 
the sixth article, the twentieth is devoted to the defence of it. 

Dr. Shedd exhibits the thoroughly catholic and evangelical 
character of the Augsburg Confession in regard to the Trinity, 
Sin, Salvation, and the Last Things. He goes on, however, to 
make some strictures on certain points, and says : " Though 
decidedly Protestant upon the cardinal points, the Augsburg 
Confession contains some remnants of that unscriptural system, 
against which it was such a powerful and earnest protest." 
He admits, that upon the cardinal doctrines, the Augsburg 
Confession is Protestant and sound. He maintains, however, 
that the same Confession contains some remnants of Romanism. 

"We feel at this point no little surprise in regard to Dr. 
Shedd's admissions. He speaks of matters as of little moment, 
which we could have supposed he, as a Calvinist, would esteem 
as highly important. Is Dr. Shedd safe, for example, in con- 
ceding that the doctrines concerning the Eucharistic presence 
and Absolution are not cardinal ; for if the doctrines are 
not cardinal, the errors in regard to them, cannot be ; on 
his premises, then, Transubstantiation itself is not a cardinal 
error, and the Romish doctrine of priestly absolution is not 
a cardinal error. We, as Evangelical Lutherans, hold that, 
as error on these points is cardinal, so must the truth, 
in regard to them, be cardinal. Fundamental errors are 
the antitheses of fundamental truths only, and we Evangel- 
ical Lutherans actually cherish, on Dr. Shedd's own showing, 
a stronger, and, as he would perhaps regard it, an extremer 
opposition to the Romish errors on these points, than he does 
— we do regard the Romish errors on these doctrines as cardinal, 
but it seems he does not. He will find in our divines, through 
centuries, this stern opposition to these very errors as cardinal, 
and among no men, at this hour, is this feeling deeper, than 
among the most tenacious adherents to the Augsburg Confes- 
sion. How does he account for it then, that under the 
nurture of this very Confession, which he supposes to be sym- 



THE CONFESSION NOT ROMANIZING. 339 

pathetic with Romanism at some points, there has been nursed 
a deeper and more radical anti-Romish feeling on these very 
doctrines, than his own? 

Dr. Shedd goes on to say : " These Popish elements are found 
in those portions particularly, which treat of the sacraments ; 
and more particularly in that article which defines the Sacra- 
ment of the Supper. In Article XIII, the Augsburg Confes- 
sion is careful to condemn the Papal theory, that the sacraments 
are efficacious, ex opere operate, that is by their intrinsic efficacy, 
without regard to faith in the recipient, or to the operation of 
the Holy Spirit ; but when, in Article X, it treats of the 
Lord's Supper, it teaches that ' the body and blood of Christ 
are truly present, and are distributed to those who partake of 
the Supper.' This doctrine of Consubstantiation, according to 
which there are two factors, viz. : the material bread and wine, 
and the immaterial or spiritual body of Christ united or con- 
substantiated in the consecrated sacramental symbols, does not 
differ in kind from the Popish doctrine of Transubstantiation, 
according to which there is, indeed, but one element in the 
consecrated symbols, but that is the very body and blood of 
Christ into which the bread and wine have been transmuted." 
Nothing is more difficult, than for a thinker or believer of one 
school, fairly to represent the opinions and faith of thinkers 
and believers of another school. On the points on which Dr. 
Shedd here dwells, his Puritanical tone of mind renders it so 
difficult for him to enter into the very heart of the historical 
faith of the Church, that we can hardly blame him, that if it 
were his duty to attempt to present, in his own language, the 
views of the Lutheran Church, he has not done it very success- 
fully. From the moment he abandons the Lutheran sense of 
terms, and reads into them a Puritan construction, from that 
moment he wanders from the facts, and unconsciously mis- 
represents. 

In noticing Dr. Shedd's critique on this alleged feature of 
Romanism, we would say in passing, that the Augsburg Con- 
fession does not teach the doctrine of Consubstantiation. From 
first to last, the Lutheran Church has rejected the name of 
Consubstantiation and everything which that name properly 



340 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

implies. Bold and uncompromising as our Confessors and 
Theologians have been, if the word Consubstantiation (which 
is not a more human, term than Trinity and Original Sin are 
human terms,) had expressed correctly their doctrine, they 
would not have hesitated to use it. It is not used in any Con- 
fession of our Church, and we have never seen it used in any 
standard dogmatician of our communion, except to condemn 
the term, and to repudiate the idea that our Church held the 
doctrine it involves. We might adduce many of the leading 
evidences on this point ; but for the present, we will refer to 
but a few. Bucer, in his Letter to Comander, confesses that 
" he had done injustice to Luther, in imputing to him the 
doctrine of Impanation," and became a defender of the doctrine 
he had once rejected. Gerhard, that monarch among our 
theologians, says : " To meet the calumnies of opponents, we 
would remark, that we neither believe in Impanation nor Con- 
substantiation, nor in any physical or local presence whatsoever. 
Nor do we believe in that consubstantiative presence which 
some define to be the inclusion of one substance in another. 
Far from us be that figment. The heavenly thing and the 
earthly thing, in the Holy Supper, in the physical and natural 
sense, are not present with one another." Baier, among our 
older divines, has written a di&sertation expressly to refute this 
calumny, and to show, as Cotta expresses it, " that our theo- 
logians are entirely free from it {jpenitus abhor r ere.)" Cotta, in 
his note on Gerhard, says : " The word Consubstantiation may 
be understood in different senses. Sometimes it denotes a local 
conjunction of two bodies, sometimes a commingling of them, 
as, for example, when it is alleged that the bread coalesces with 
the body, and the wine with the blood, into one substance. 
But in neither sense can that monstrous doctrine of Consub- 
stantiation be attributed to our Church, since Lutherans do 
not believe either in that local conjunction of two bodies, nor 
in any commingling of bread and of Christ's body, of wine and 
of His blood." To pass from great theologians to a man of the 
highest eminence in the philosophical and scientific world, 
Leibnitz, in his Discourse on the Conformity of Reason with 
Faith, says : " Evangelical (Lutherans) do not approve of the 



THE CONFESSION NOT ROMANIZING. 341 

doctrine of Consubstantiation or of Imjpanation, and no one 
could impute it to them, unless he had failed to make himself 
properly acquainted with their views." To return again to 
theologians, Reinhard says : " Our Church has never taught 
that the emblems become one substance with the body and 
blood of Jesus, an opinion commonly denominated Consub- 
stantiation." Mosheim says : " Those err who say that we 
believe in Imj)anation. Nor are those more correct who 
charge us with believing Bub'panation. Equally groundless is 
the charge of Consubstantiation. All these opinions differ very 
far from the doctrine of our Church." 

The insinuations of Rationalism against this doctrine of 
our Church only strengthen the affirmations of her great 
divines. If all the great Congregational authorities of New 
England, of the past century and the present, were quite 
agreed that a certain doctrine was not taught in the Saybrook 
Platform, and the " liberal" gentlemen of the Theodore Parker 
school were very zealous in showing that it was taught there, 
would not Dr. Shedd consider the affirmation as sealing the 
negation? Would he not think that, if it were possible to 
make a mistake in believing the great divines, there could be 
no mistake possible in disbelieving the " liberal" polemics ? We 
beg him therefore, as he desires to do, as he would be done by, 
not to think that our Lutheran Church, historically the mother 
of pure Churches, in some sense even of his own Church among 
them, has ever believed in the doctrine of Consubstantiation. 

One word more on the allegation of Dr. Shedd, that there 
are Romanizing elements in our Confession. Nothing is more 
easy, and few things are more perilous, than for Protestants to 
insist that some peculiarity of this, or that part of a denomi- 
national system of doctrine, is a relic of Romanism. Dr. Shedd 
makes this the solvent of our doctrine of the Lord's Supper, 
just as the Baptist makes it the solvent of Dr. Shedd's doc- 
trine of infant baptism, and as the Socinian makes it the sol- 
vent of Dr. Shedd's doctrine of the Trinity, of the divinity of 
Christ, and of his propitiatory sacrifice. Not everything we 
learn from Rome is Romish. Not only so, but, as earnest 
Evangelical Protestants, we may admit, that deep and vital as 



342 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

are the points in which we differ from Romanists, they are not 
so vital as those in which we agree with them, and that Evan- 
gelical Protestants are not so remote from Romanists as they 
are from false and heretical Protestants. Dr. Shedd (we use 
Romanizing n ^ s name simply as giving concreteness to ortho- 
eiements. dox New England Congregationalism,) agrees with 

the Romanists as to the sole object of supreme worship, hut 
he does not so agree with his Socinian New England contempo- 
raries, Protestant, par excellence, as these Socinians assume to 
be. Hence he is generically of the same religion with the Ro- 
manists, and would concede a fraternal affinity with Pascal, or 
Fenelon, which he could not with any Unitarian, however 
lovely in his personal character. We are not so much alarmed 
therefore, as some men pretend to be with mere coincidence 
with elements existing in the Romish Church. If anything in 
our Protestant doctrines or usages be, indeed, a perpetuation 
of what is unscriptural in the Romish system, it should be 
weeded out ; but it does not follow, that because a thing is in 
Rome, it is of Rome. Once a pure Church of Christ, the 
Church of Rome never lost all of her original endowments. 
We feel that Dr. Shedd is altogether too conscientious and 
noble a man to attempt to excite this kind of anti-Romish 
odium as a cheap way of dispensing with argument. Never- 
theless, so far as the authority of his name will carry weight 
with it, he has helped, by the sentences he has written, to in- 
crease the weight of unjust reproach which has been heaped 
upon our Church for centuries, for no other reason than for un- 
swerving fidelity to what she is persuaded is the truth of God. 
Our Church does hold, as Dr. Shedd also does, without change, 
the great Trinitarian and Christological doctrines which were 
preserved in their purity in the Church of Rome, but our 
Church does not hold a view of the Lord's Supper coincident 
with that of Rome, derived from it, or sustained by the same 
kind of evidence, or open to the same invincible objections, 
scriptural, historical and practical. Dr. Shedd says: "This 
doctrine of Consubstantiation does not differ in kind from the 
Popish doctrine of Transubstantiation." We need not stop 
here to repeat that our Church does not hold, and never did 



ROMANIZING ELEMENTS. 343 

hold the doctrine of " Consubstantiation." Be that as it may, 
and waiving any further consideration of it for the present, we 
cannot agree with Dr. Shedd, that in the sense in which he 
seems to employ the words, onr doctrine " does not differ in 
kind from, the Popish doctrine of Transubstantiation." So far 
we concede that there is an agreement in kind, that over 
against a merely ideal presence of Christ, wrought by the hu- 
man mind in its memory, or by its faith, our Church in common 
with both the Roman and Greek Churches, does hold to a 
true presence of the whole Christ, the factor of which is not our 
mind, but his own divine person. We do not think him into 
the Supper, but he is verily and indeed there. Faith does not 
put him there, but finds him there. So profoundly was Luther 
impressed with the importance of holding to a presence which 
did not play and fluctuate with the emotions and infirmities of 
man, but which rested on the all-sufficiency of the person of 
Christ, on which hangs the all -sufficiency of his work and 
promise — that deeply as he felt, and triumphantly as he com- 
bated the Romish error of Transubstantiation, he nevertheless 
declared that this error was not so radical as that of Zwingli 
(whose view Calvin himself stigmatized as profane,) and said, 
that if he must be driven to one extreme or the other, he would 
rather, with the Pope, have Christ's true body without the 
bread, than with Zwingli have the true bread without the true 
body. Surely, that is a glorious error, if error it be, which 
springs from trusting too far, too implicitly, in too child-like a 
way in the simple words of our adorable Lord I If the world 
divides on his utterances, we will err, if we err, with those who, 
fettered by the word, bring every thought into captivity to the 
obedience of Christ. It was not the power of education, not 
the influence of Romanistic leaven, but the might of the Word 
of God, interpreted in regard to the Lord's Supper by the very 
laws by which Luther was controlled in reaching the doctrine 
of justification by faith, and every other cardinal doctrine, it 
was this, and this only, which fixed his conviction. After the 
lapse of centuries, whose thoughts in this sphere we have 
striven to weigh, whether for, or against, the doctrine of our 
Church, with everything in the character of our times and of 



344 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION 1 . 

our land unfavorable to a community in the faith of our fathers, 
after a conscientious, prayerful examination of the whole 
ground, we confess, and if need were, through shame and suf- 
fering, God helping us, would continue to confess, our profound 
conviction that this doctrine which Dr. Shedd considers a relic 
of Romanism is Scriptural to its core, and that no process can 
dislodge it, which will not, carried logically through, bring the 
whole temple of Evangelical truth to the ground. No man can 
defend the doctrine of the Trinity, and assail the Lutheran 
doctrine of the Eucharist on the same principles of interpreta- 
tion. 

Nevertheless, he who is persuaded that the Romish doctrine 
of Tran substantiation is unscriptural, is not thereby in the re- 
motest degree logically arrayed against the Scriptural character 
of the doctrine of our Church. They are not, in such sense, of 
one kind as to warrant this species of suspicion. They are the 
results of greatly different modes of interpreting Scripture, 
Romanism and Zwinglianism, being of one kind in this, that 
they depart from the letter of God's "Word, interpreted by just 
rules of language. The Lutheran and Romish views differ 
most vitally in their internal character and position, the one 
taking its harmonious place in Evangelical doctrine, the other 
marring its grace and moral consistency ; Romanism and 
Zwinglianism being of one kind in this, that both, in different 
ways, exhibit dogmatic superficiality and inconsequence. The 
Lutheran and Romish views are differently related to the doc- 
trinal history of the Church, the one having its witnesses in 
the earliest and purest ages, the other being unknown to the 
ancient Church and generated in its decline ; Romanism and 
Zwinglianism here being of one kind, in that both are unhis- 
torical. The Lutheran and Romish views differ in their devo- 
tional and practical working ; Romanism and Zwinglianism 
here being of one kind, in that both generate the common 
result of a feeble faith — the one, indeed, by reaction, the other 
by development. Nothing could be more remote from a just 
representation of the fact than the charge that, in any unde- 
sirable sense, the Romish and Lutheran views of the Lord's 
Supper are one in kind. 



THE CONFESSIONS OF THE CHURCHES. 345 

Dr. Shedd, after leaving the Augsburg Confession and its 
Apology, enumerates the " series of symbolical writings," 
" which constitute a part of Lutheran Symbolism," and men- 
tions — 1. The Confessio Saxonica ; and, 2. The 
Confessio Wiirtembergica. Neither of these Confes- f the Lutheran 
sions can be regarded as a proper part of the sym- and of the Re " 

° j. j. j. d formed Churches. 

bolical books of our Church. They were for tem- 
porary ends, and were confined in their official recognition to a 
very small part of the Church. If Dr. Shedd is correct in sup- 
posing that the altered Confession of Melanchthon of 1540 is 
Pelagianizing in regard to Regeneration, and more or less Cal- 
vinistic in regard to the Sacraments, it is not very likely that 
the Saxon Confession of 1551, from the same hand, would be 
received by the Lutheran Church without suspicion ; and 
neither the claim made for it in its title, nor Dr. Shedd's en- 
dorsement of that claim, would completely overcome the innate 
improbability of its being without reservation " a repetition of 
the Augsburg Confession." 

The Wiirtemberg Confession of Brentius, which was written 
before Melanchthon's, is sound enough, but never has obtained 
any general recognition. There are several writings which 
could have been classed among our symbols with more propriety 
than those mentioned by Dr. Shedd, as, for example, Luther's 
Confession of Faith, (1528 ;) the Articles of Visitation, (1592,) 
which are still authoritative in Saxony — often confounded in 
this country with the earlier Saxon Articles of Visitation, 
(1527 ;) and the Consensus Rejpetitus of 1664. Not one of them, 
however, belongs to the Confessional writings of the Evan- 
gelical Lutheran Church. 

Dr. Shedd's account of the Formula Concordise strikes us as 
peculiarly unfortunate. E~o hint is given of the occasion for 
the Confession, of the urgent necessities out of which it arose, 
of the earnest desire for peace and unity which prompted its 
formation, of the patient labors running over many years, in 
which its foundations were laid, and of its masterly completion 
and the enthusiastic spontaneousness of its reception. The 
reader might imagine from Dr. Shedd's statements that this 
book was an effect without any just cause. He says : "It was 



346 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

drawn up by Andreee and others in 1577." The truth is, that 
the labors of 1577, in which Chemnitz was a greater worker 
than Andrese, were merely the finishing labors of years — 
labors whose results were embodied in the Torgau Book. The 
work of 1577 was, in reality, that of thorough revision. Dr. 
Shedd says the Formula Concordia? was " presented to the Im- 
perial Diet." We are at a loss to guess out of what miscon- 
ception this statement could have originated. Not only is 
there no historical voucher for any such statement, but the 
thing itself, to any one who will recall the history of the times, 
will be seen at once to be absolutely impossible ; and yet, Dr. 
Shedd, as if to show that there are degrees in the absolute, 
acids that this Imperial Diet " sought to secure its adoption by 
the Lutheran Church." All this is purely aerial. There was 
no such Diet, no such presentation, and no such recommenda- 
tion. Dr. Shedd's pen is the magician's wand which has con- 
jured up the whole. This is a serious charge to bring against 
so eminent a scholar ; but, feeling the full responsibility 
involved in it, truth compels us to make it. 

Dr. Shedd, still in his aerial movement, says of this empirical 
Imperial Diet : "In this they were unsuccessful." Dropping 
any consideration of the lack of success of this hypothetical 

Reception of Diet, in its phantasmagorial Decrees, we might say 
the Formula con- that no official effort from any source has ever been 
made to secure the adoption of the Formula Con- 
cordise by the entire Lutheran Church. The great German 
princes and theologians to whom the Formula owed its exist- 
ence made no effort to bring it to the attention of the Lutheran 
Church in other lands, with the solitary exception of Denmark. 
Nevertheless, by its own internal merits this Formula secured 
from the first a reception by an immense majority of the Lu- 
theran Churches, won its way against the deadliest opposition, 
was finally received, almost without exception, where it was at 
first rejected, has been acknowledged virtually in the few cases 
in which it has not been acknowledged officially, and is received 
now in almost every part of the Lutheran Church, in which 
her proper doctrinal life has not been disturbed by rationalistic 
or pseudo-unionistic principles. It was originally signed by 






RECEPTION OF THE FORMULA CONCORDIA. 347 

three Electors, three Dukes and Princes, twenty-four Counts, 
four Barons, thirty-five imperial cities, in all by eighty-six 
States of the Empire, and by eight thousand ministers of the 
Gospel. In Denmark, where it was received by the King with 
brutal violence, and its introduction prohibited under penalty 
of death, it has long since been accepted, in fact, if not in form, 
as a Symbol.* In Holstein it was formally adopted in 1647. 
In Sweden, because of the powerful influences tending to the 
restoration of Popery under the king, it could not at first 
secure an entrance ; but in 1593, at the Council of Upsala, the 
States determined upon its subscription, and its authority as a 
Symbol was confirmed by later solemn acts. In Pomerania 
and Livonia it obtained symbolical authority. In Hungary it 
was approved in 1593, and formally adopted in 1597. In 
France, Henry of Navarre desired to form a league with the 
Lutherans against the Catholics, but the acceptance of the 
Formula of Concord was made a condition on the part of the 
Evangelical States, and the negotiations were broken oft*. 
" The symbolical authority of the Formula of Concord for the 
Lutheran Church, as such," says Kollner, " can hardly be 
doubted. By far the larger part of those who regarded them- 
selves as belonging to the Lutheran Church received it as their 
Symbol. And as, to use the words of the Elector Augustus, 
we have no Pope among us, can there be any other mode of 
sanctioning a Symbol than by a majority? To this is to be 
added, and should be especially noted, that a larger part of those 
who did not receive it, objected to doing so, not on doctrinal 
grounds, but partly for political reasons, freely or compulsorily, 
as the case might be, partly out of attachment to Melanchthon, 
partly out of a morbid vanity, because they had not been in- 
vited early enough to take part in framing the Concordia, and 
had consequently not participated in it — and partly because, 
in one land, those who had the most influence were Calvinistic- 
ally inclined, although a large majority of the clergy approved 
of the doctrines of the Formula. The inference, therefore, is 
by no means to be made that there was a deviation in doctrine, 
because there was not an acceptance of the Formula." 

* Kollner, p. 575. 



348 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

It will be seen from this that Dr. Shedd hardly does 
justice to the historical dignity of this great Confession, when 

its character ne sa y s : "^ was a polemic document, constructed 
and contents. by that portion of the Lutheran Church that was 
hostile to the Calvinistic theory of the Sacraments." Cer- 
tainly, although the Formula is polemic in meeting error, its 
main end is irenical, and its general tone exceedingly moder- 
ate. When Dr. Shedd leaves the reader to imagine that this 
Confession was not only, as it would seem from his representa- 
tion mainly, but was exclusively directed against the Calvin- 
istic theory of the Sacraments, he does injustice to the Form- 
ula and to the reader. Of the twelve Articles, but one is de- 
voted to either of the Sacraments, and in the others there is 
much in which true Calvinists would feel a deep sympathy — 
much that nobly defends great points of doctrine common to 
the whole Evangelical faith. In the first Article, which treats 
of Original Sin — in the second, of the Freedom of the Will — 
in the third, of Justification — in the fourth, of Good Works — 
in the fifth, of the Law and the Gospel — in the sixth, of the 
third use of the Law, the most rigid Calvinist would be forced 
to confess that there is a noble and Scriptural presentation of 
those great doctrines. They defend what all pure Christendom 
is interested in defending. In many of the antitheses of the 
twelfth Article a Calvinist would heartily join, as he would in 
the masterly discussion of the adiaphora in Article tenth. In 
Article eleventh, of the eternal foreknowledge and election of 
God, the Calvinist would find the distinctive doctrine of Calvin 
rejected, but he could not but be pleased with the profound 
reverence and exquisite skill with which the doctrine is dis- 
cussed, and by which it is redeemed from the extreme of Cal- 
vinism without running into the opposite and far more danger- 
ous one of Pelagianism, or of low Arminianism. In the 
Articles, seventh and eighth, a Calvinist might discover much 
in regard to the Lord's Supper and the Person of Christ, in which 
he might not concur ; and in Article ninth, on the Descent of 
Christ into Hell, he would find a view very different from 
Calvin's, which Calvinists themselves now almost universally 
reject. Nevertheless, he would discover in such a perusal, as 



THE DOCTRINE OF UBIQUITY. 349 

he certainly would not from Dr. Shedd's account, that this 
supposed polemic document, originating in opposition to the 
Calvinistic theory of the Sacraments, really defends much more 
than it attacks that which Calvinists love. 

Dr. Shedd says : "It carries out the doctrine of Consubstan- 
tiation" (which our Church never held) " into a technical state- 
ment," (every part of which had long before been The Doctrine 
made.) " Teaching the ubiquity of Christy's body," of ubiquity. 
says Dr. Shedd, though the Formula itself never speaks of the 
"ubiquity" of Christ's body. "Ubiquity" was a term in- 
vented by those who wished to fix upon our Church the impu- 
tation of teaching a local omnipresence or infinite extension of 
the body of Christ — errors which the Formula, and our 
whole Church with it, reject in the strongest terms. The 
doctrine of the Formula is that the body of Christ has no in- 
trinsic or essential omnipresence as the divinity has ; that after 
its own intrinsic manner, and in virtue of its own essential 
qualities, it has a determinate presence, and in that mode of 
presence is not upon earth ; but that, after another mode, 
supernatural, illocal, incomprehensible, and yet real, it is 
rendered present, " where Christ will," through the divine 
nature, which has received it into personal union. 

If the question were asked : How is God omnipresent ? 
How can the undivided totality of His substance be in each 
part of the universe ? How can it be all in heaven and all 
on earth, and all on earth without ceasing in any measure to 
be all in heaven, and without motion or extension, without 
multiplication of presences, and so that there is no more of 
God in the whole universe than there is in each point of it ? 
If such a question were asked Dr. Shedd, we presume that, 
bowing before the inscrutable mystery, he would reply : God is 
present after the manner of an infinite Spirit — a manner most 
real, but utterly incomprehensible to us. Grant, then, that 
this infinite Spirit has taken to itself a human nature, as an in- 
separable element of its person, the result is inevitable. 
Where the divine is, the human must be. The primary and 
very lowest element of a personal union is the co-presence of 
the parts. To say that the divine nature of Christ is per- 



350 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

sonally present without his humanity, is to deny that this 
humanity is a part of that personality, and the doctrine of the 
incarnation falls to the dust : Christ becomes no more than the 
organ of a special revelation of Deity : His humanity is no 
more properly one person with God than the burning bush was 
one person with Jehovah. Accepting the doctrine of a real incar- 
nation, the omnipresence of the human nature of Christ, not in 
itself, in which respect its presence is determinate, but through 
the divine, is a necessary result and involves no new mystery. 
If that whole Godhead which dwells m Christ's body can, 
without motion, without leaving heaven, or extending itself, 
be present with us on earth, then can it render present with us, 
without motion or extension, that other nature which is one 
person with it. What the divine nature of Christ has of 
itself, his human nature has through the divine, which has 
taken it to be one person with itself. This is one result of 
that doctrine of the Communicatio idioniatum, of which, as we 
shall see in a moment, Dr. Shedd offers so extremely inaccurate 
a definition. If the Evangelical Lutheran is asked, how can 
Christ's human nature be present with us? he can reply: After 
the manner in which an infinite Spirit renders present a human 
nature, which it has taken to be an inseparable constituent of 
its own person, a manner most real, but utterly incomprehen- 
sible to us. This is the doctrine at which Dr. Shedd levels, as 
has often been done before him, the term Ubiquity. It was 
the whole Christ — the man as well as the God — who said : 
" Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there 
am I in the midst of them." It was the whole Christ who 
said : " Lo I I am with you always, even unto the end of the 
world." And what the whole Christ promised, the whole 
Christ will perform. On any other theory, the Christian on 
earth has no more a personal Christ with him than the Patri- 
archs had ; the New Dispensation has made no advance on the 
Old ; the divine nature, the second person of the Trinity, was 
just as much on earth then as he is now ; and all the light, 
peace and joy, which a sense of the actual nearness, tender 
guardianship, and personal sympathy of an incarnate Christ 
sheds upon the soul, vanish in a haze of hyperboles, a miserable 



THE DOCTRINE OF UBIQUITY. 351 

twilight of figures of speech, and the vigorous and soul-sus- 
taining objectivity of Faith faints into a mere sentimentalism. 
Cold speculation has taken our Lord out of the world he 
redeemed, and has made heaven, not his throne, but a great 
sepulchre, with a stone rolled against its portal. 

Dr. Shedd says, moreover, in his extremely compact state- 
ment of the doctrinal essence of the Formula, of which our 
readers, with the close of this sentence, will have every word, 
that it teaches " the communicatio idiomatum, or the presence of 
the divine nature of Christ in the sacramental elements." We 
cannot refrain from expressing our amazement that the writer 
of a History of Christian Doctrine should give such a defini- 
tion of so familiar a term. We are forced almost to the conclu- 
sion — and it is the mildest one we can make for Dr. Shedd — 
that he has ventured to give a statement of the doctrine of our 
Formula, without having read it with sufficient care to form a 
correct judgment as to the meaning of its most important 
terms. 

The Doctor closes this paragraph with these words, which 
certainly exhibit no very deep insight into the internal history 
of our Church : " The Lutheran Church is still divided upon 
this Symbol. The so-called High Lutherans insist that the 
Formula Concordise is the scientific completion of the preced- 
ing Lutheran Symbolism," (Dr. Shedd seems to us constantly 
to use the word " Symbolism " inaccurately ;) " while the mod- 
erate party are content to stand by the Augsburg Confession, 
the Apology, and the Smalcald Articles." We can assure Dr. 
Shedd, if w r e know anything of the Lutheran Church, that it is 
not to be classified in this way. A man may hold very firmly, 
that the Formula is the scientific completion of the system of 
the earlier Symbols, and may reject it and them, or receive 
them with a reservation; on the other hand, a man may be 
satisfied with the Augsburg Confession alone, but receiving it 
in good faith, will be as high a Lutheran as Dr. Shedd would 
like to see. The real point of classification as to the relation 
of nominal Lutherans to the Confession seems to us to be 
mainly this : Evangelical Lutherans, who are such in the his- 
torical sense, heartily receive as Scriptural statements of doc- 



352 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

trine, the Confessions of the Church in their proper meaning as 
reached by the laws of language ; while others who wear the 
name, claim the right, in varying degrees of practical latitude, 
to set aside, at their pleasure, part of these doctrines. This is 
the vital issue, and its character is substantially the same, 
whether a few of the Symbols or all of them are in question. 
We might add that, under this latitudinarian claim, there 
have actually been sheltered in the Lutheran Church such soul- 
destroying errors as Socinianism and Universalism, and that, 
where the tendency has not run into the grosser heresies, the 
pervading characteristic of those who represent its extremes is 
that of laxity in doctrine, government, and discipline. There 
is yet a third class, who, largely revealing practically the spirit 
of a genuine Lutheranism, and more or less sympathizing with 
its controverted doctrines, yet, without a positive acceptance 
of them, confess that the logic of the position is with historical 
Lutheranism, and are never consciously unjust to it. This 
class are regarded with affection and respect by the thoroughly 
conservative part of the Church, and are bitterly assailed, or 
noisily claimed by the fanatical element, as the anger produced 
by their moderation, or the hope inspired by their apparent 
neutrality, predominates. 

Dr. Shedd, after disposing of the Lutheran Confession in 
what, our readers will have seen, we do not consider a very 
caivinistk con- satisfactory manner, next discusses the " Reformed 
fessions. (Calvinistic) Confessions." In this whole section 

he assumes the identity of the Zwinglian and Calvinistic sys- 
tems, in which we are forced to regard him as mistaken. In 
the heart of doctrine and tendency, pure Calvinism is often 
more Lutheranizing than Zwingiianizing, for Zwingii was 
largely Pelagian. Dr. Shedd seems to recognize nothing of the 
mediating tendency of the school of Bucer, nor of the Melanch- 
thonian type of doctrinal statement ; but with a classification 
which seems too sweeping and inaccurate, considers the Tetra- 
politan, which was prepared several years before Calvin was 
known as a theologian, (and which seems to be the first confes- 
sional statement of that doctrine of the Lord's Supper which 
now bears Calvin's name,) the Fidel Ratio of Zwingii, the 



CALVINISTIC CONFESSIONS. 353 

Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dort and the Thirty-nine 
Articles of the Church of England, all as belonging to the same 
class of Confessions. Certainly, if the words Reformed and 
Calvinistic are synonyms, as Dr. Shedd makes them, this group- 
ing is open to very serious objections. When Dr. Shedd 
reaches the Heidelberg Catechism, he bestows so little care 
upon the arrangement of his facts, that the incautious reader 
might be led into very serious mistakes. He might suppose, 
for instance, that Frederick the First was a successor of John 
Casimir. He is told, in express terms, that Louis the Sixth 
brought the Palatinate under the Formula Concordise in 1576, 
(four years before it was published,) and if he is not on. his 
guard, will be sure to imagine that the troubles which followed 
the mutations of 1576, and the subsequent ones under John 
Casimir, (1583-1592,) led to the formation of the Heidelberg 
Catechism in 1562. Dr. Shedd continues to call the Electors 
(we know not why) " Crown Princes," and in general seems to 
stumble from the moment he gets on German ground. What 
will intelligent preachers and laymen in the German Reformed 
Church think, for instance, of this eulogy with which the 
notice of the Heidelberg Catechism closes : " In doctrine, it 
teaches justification with the Lutheran glow and vitality, pre- 
destination and election with Calvinistic firmness and self-con- 
sistency, and the Zwinglian theory of the Sacraments with de- 
cision, .... and is regarded with great favor by the 
High Lutheran party of the present day." We will not un- 
dertake to speak for our German Reformed friends, except to 
say, that this is not the sort of thing they talked, at their Ter- 
centenary, and put into their handsome volume. As to" the 
High Lutherans of the present day," if we are of them, as we 
are sometimes charged with being, Dr. Shedd is right : the 
Heidelberg Catechism is regarded by them with great favor — 
all except its doctrines. It is a neat thing — a very neat thing 
— the mildest, most winning piece of Calvinism of which we 
know. One-half of it is Lutheran, and this we like very much, 
and the solitary improvement we would suggest in it would be 
to make the other half of it Lutheran, too. With this slight 
reservation, on this very delicate point, the High Lutherans 

23 



354 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

are rather fond of it than otherwise, to the best of their knowl- 
edge and belief. 

We have not proposed to ourselves a general review of Dr. 
Shedd's book, but simply to look at it with reference to its 
statements in regard to our own Church. Nevertheless, we 
cannot avoid an allusion to what strikes us an extreme state- 
ment in apparent conflict with sound Theology. It is in his 
declaration that " sin is in the strictest sense a creature." " The 
sin not a crea- original act of self-will is strictly creative from 
ture - nothing." Dr. Shedcl here seems to labor to show 

that he is not speaking in a popular and rhetorical way, but 
that over against such a style of language, he wishes to be 
understood rigidly — sin is a creature — but God is not its 
creator. Man is as really and as strictly a creator as God is — 
and sin is his creature. Such language, if pressed, seems in- 
consistent with the nature of God, of man, of sin, and of 
creature. It denies that God is the alone Creator of all things ; 
it maintains, almost after a Manichean style, that evil is a 
primal principle and that a man is the Ahriman of it ; it 
makes sin an objective reality, not the condition or act of a 
subject, and elevates the mutilation and disease of the creature 
to a rank in being with the creature itself. Eb more than the 
surgeon creates by cutting off the leg of a man, does man create 
sin by a self-originated destruction of his original righteousness, 
on which follows that inordinate state of the natural reason 
and appetites which theologians call concupiscence. The 
impulse to theft, to lying, to impurity, is not a substance, 
not a creature, but is the result of inordinate desire in which 
self-love now unchecked by original righteousness and kindled 
by the fomes of the self-corrupted will, reveals itself. It is 
not a creature, but a moral phenomenon of the creature — 
desire and purpose are not creatures, but exercises of the 
faculties of the creature. If sin be strictly a creature, it 
must be the creature of God, and this part of Dr. Shedd's 
theory really would make God the author of sin, an inference, 
which, we are sure, no one could more earnestly resist than 
himself. The finite will can corrupt the creatures, but it 
cannot add to them. 



IX. 

THE SPECIFIC DOCTRINES OP THE CONSERVATIVE 
REFORMATION: 

ORIGINAL SIN. 

(AUGSBURG CONFESSION, ART. II.) 



THE foundation of the second Article of the Augsburg 
Confession, which treats of Original Sin, was laid in 
the Articles of the Colloquy at Marburg. This colloquy took 
place October 3d, 1529, and was designed to bring about, if 
possible, an agreement between Luther and Zwingli, Documentary 
and their adherents. Fifteen Articles were drawn S^Articieof 
up by Luther. Fourteen of these were adopted the A.confession. 
entire by both parties, and the fifteenth was received with 
the exception of one point, to which the Zwinglians objected. 
In these fifteen Articles are the roots of the Augs- 1 Articles of 
burg Confession. The fourth Article was on Orig- the colloquy at 
inal Sin, and is as follows : 

" In the fourth place, we believe that original sin is from 
Adam, inborn and inherited to us, and is a sin of such kind 
that it condemns all men, and if Jesus Christ had not come to 
our help, by his death and life, we must have died therein 
eternally, and could not have come to God's kingdom and 
blessedness." * 

* J. J. Miiller's Historie, 806. Corpus. Reform, xxvi. 123. Compared with 
Hospinian His. Sacr. ii. 77. On the whole Colloquy, cf. : Corp. Reform, i. Nos. 
631-642. Seckendorf. Hist. Luth. ii. 139. Luther's Werke : Walch xvii. 2361, 
2374, xxiii. 6, 35. Jena : iv. 469. Leipz. xix. 530. Erlangen : lxv. 88. Zimmer- 
mann : Ref. Schr. M. L. iii. 426. Luther's Briefe (De Wette, iii. 508.) Zwingli's 
Werke (Zurich, 1830.) : Germ. Vol. ii. P. iii. 44-58. Lat. iv. 173-204. Historia v. d. 
Augsburg Confess. (Chemnitz, Selneccer, Kirchner) Leipz. 1584. Fol. 92-107. 
Do. Lat. 1585. 113-133. Sculteti Annal. ad ann. 1529. 199. Chytrsei : Histor. 

355 



356 



CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 



In an ampler form the same doctrine presents itself in the 
Schwabach Articles. These seventeen Articles are also from 
the hand of Lnther. They are largely an elaboration of the 
Marburg Articles, and are the direct groundwork of the doctri- 

ii. The schwa- na l articles of the Augsburg Confession. The fourth 
bach Articles. Article runs thus : " That original sin is a true, real 
sin, and not merely a weakness or defect, but such a sin as 
would condemn all men who spring from Adam, and would 
separate us from God forever, if Jesus Christ had not interceded 
for us, and taken upon himself this sin, with all other sins 
which follow therefrom, and by his suffering made satisfaction 
therefor, and thus utterly taken them away, and blotted them 
out in himself, as in Psalm li. and Rom. v. is clearly written 
of this sin." * 

in. The Article j n the Latin and German texts of the earliest 

in the Augsburg . . 

confession. authorized .Edition of each, we have as follows, the 



Article on Original Sin. 



Literal Translation of the 
Latin, f 

II. 

Also they teach, that after 
Adam's fall, all men begotten 
after the common course of 
nature are born with sin ; that 
is without the fear of God, 
without trust in God, and with 



Literal Translation of the 
German. X 

The Second. 

Further is taught, (I) that 
after the fall of Adam, (II) all 
men who are born naturally, are 
conceived and born in sins, 
that is, that they all from the 
mother's womb, are full of evil 



d. A. C. 159. Lat. 643-646. Rudelbach : Ref. L. u. Un. 665-668. Ebrard : 
Abendmahl, 345-347. 

* Corpus Reformat, xxvi. 153. Compared with the Latin in Pfaff. L. S. Ap- 
pendix 4. Luther's Werke Walch : xx. 1-3. Chytrsei: Hist. (1576)19; Do, Lat, 
(1578) 21 ; J. J. Muller's Histor. 442. Coelestinus : i. 25. Scultetus : Annal. 

f For the Latin here translated, the writer has before him the original Witten- 
berg Edition of 1530-1531. He has compared it word for word with the text of 
the Book of Concord (Muller's ed.), and finds that they do not differ in a word or 
a letter. 

X For the German we have translated from the original Editio Princeps of 
Melanchthon, the Wittenberg 4to. 1530, 1531. 



THE ARTICLE IN THE A. CONFESSION. 



357 



fleshly appetite, and that this 
disease or original fault is truly 
sin, condemning and bringing 
now also eternal death upon all 
that are not horn again hy 
haptism and the Holy Spirit. 



They condemn the Pelagians, 
and others, who deny this orig- 
inal fault to he sin indeed : and 
who, so as to lessen the glory 
of the merits and benefits of 
Christ, argue that a man may 
hy the strength of his own 
reason be justified before God. 



desire and inclination, and can 
have hy nature, no true fear of 
God, no true love of God, (VII) 
no true faith in God. That also 
the same inborn plague and 
hereditary sin is truly Sin, and 
condemns all those under God's 
wrath, who are not horn (IV) 
again (III) through haptism 
and the Holy Ghost. 

Here (V) are rejected the 
Pelagians, and others, who do 
not hold (VI) original sin to be 
sin, in order that they may 
show that nature is holy, by 
natural power, to the reproach 
of the sufferings and merit of 
Christ. 



As the text of the German Ed. Princ. of Melanchthon, and 
that in the Book of Concord, are not critically identical, and as 
the distinction of the two texts will be alluded to occasionally in 
these dissertations, and is sometimes misunderstood, it may be 
well at this point to illustrate more particularly the nature of 
the differences. The causes which led to the substitution of 
the Formula text for the Melanchthonian have been given 
elsewhere.* Taking the Second Article, we present a 

* p. 248-253. 



358 



CONSERVATIVE BE FORMATION. 



Tabular View of the Critical Differences between the 
Melanchthonian and the Formula Texts. 



I. 














1 : is taught 
2 : adds : among us, 
3 : adds : and preached 
in our churches. 


Weim. 1. 


Mentz. 


Nurem. 


Nordl. 


Ansp. 2. 




II. 














1 : fall of Adam. 
2 : Adam's fall. 


Weim. 1. 


Mentz. 


Nurem. 




Ansp. 2, 3. 




III. 














1 : wieder. 
2: widerum. 


"Weim. 1. 


Mentz. 


Nurem. 




Ansp. 2. 


Ed. ant. 5. 


IV. 














1 : geborn. 

2: neu geborn. 

3: von neuem geborn. 


Weim. 1. 


Mentz, 


Nurem. 


Nordl. 
Aug. 


Ansp. 1, 2, 3. 


Ed. ant. 1,2, 
3, 4, 5,6. 


V. 














1: Hie. 
2: Hieneben. 
3: Daneben. 
VI. 


Weim. 1. 


Mentz. 






Hie, Ansp. 2. 
Corrected. 

Hie (neb en). 

Ansp. 2. First 
so -written: 
a line drawn 
over neben. 




1: halten. 
2: haben. 




Mentz. 








Ed. ant. 6. 


VII. 














1: KeinewahreGottes- 

lieb. 
2: Omit: 










AlltheMSS. 


Ed. ant. 1, 6.| 



In this tabular view, the Nos. I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, refer 
to the parts of the Article similarly marked. The reading 
marked 1, is that of Melanchthon's Edit. Princeps ; the reading 
marked 2, that of the text in the Book of Concord ; 3, a read- 
ing different from both. "When the readings of the MSS. and 
the editions surreptitiously printed before Melanchthon's Ed. 
Princeps differ from Melanchthon's, they are given in this 
table. For Melanchthon's readings are all the rest, in each 
case. The complete list of the Codices in alphabetical order is 
as follows: 

Codices : 1, Aug(sburg) ; 2, Cass(el) ; 3, Dresd(en) ; 4, Han- 
ov(er); 5, Mentz; 6, Mun(ich); 7, Nurem(berg) ; 8, Nord(lin- 
gen); 9, Ansp(ach) ; 10, Ansp. 2 ; 11, Ansp. 3 ; 12, Weim(ar) 
1 ; 13, Weim. 2. Printed Ante-Melanchthonian editions, 
(Edit, antiq.) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, of 1530. 



THE ARTICLE IN THE A. CONFESSION. 359 

To give an example of the mode of using the Table, under 
various readings: I, all the codices and editions sustain 
Melanchthon's reading, except Mentz, Nur., NbrdL, Ansp. 2, 
and Weim. 1 ; under II, all but Weim. 1, Mentz, Nur., Ansp. 
2, 3 ; under III, all but Weim. 1, Mentz, Nur., Ansp. 2., Ed. ant. 
5. The most remarkable is VII. It is found alone in the 
Editio Princeps, and Melanchthon's editions of the German. 
Taking the aggregate of the testimony of Codices and Edi- 
tions, it is about in the ratio of more than two for Melanchthon's 
Editio Princeps, to one for the text of the Book of Concord, 
and this too includes the readings of the earliest, and, con- 
sequently, immaturest of the Codices. The Codices we have 
given in alphabetical order, have been arranged chronologically, 
thus : 1, Weim. 1 (Spalatin's autograph) ; 2, Ansp. 1 ; 3, 
Hannov. ; 4, Mentz, (long believed to be the original, and, as 
such, was taken for the text of the Book of Concord) ; 5, Weim. 
2 ; 6, Dresd. ; 7, Ansp. 2 ; 8, Ansp. 3 ; 9, Cass. ; 10, Mun. ; 11, 
ISTur. ; 12, Nord. ; 13, Augs. These Codices are copies of the 
Confession made during its preparation, and, cceteris paribus, 
the later the time at which the copy was made, the greater 
the probability of its exact conformity with the text actu- 
ally handed in. An important mark of maturity is the 
addition of the subscriptions. The first three are incom- 
plete, the first six are without the subscription. Beginning 
with 7, Ansp. 2, the rest have the subscription except Mun., 
which is a fragment terminating in the Articles on the 
Mass. The facts we have presented demonstrate four things : 
First, that the question of the two German texts which have 
had Confessional authority in our Church, is purely critical. 
For all doctrinal and practical ends the two texts are one. 
Any principle which would really unsettle the text of the Con- 
fession of Faith, as a Confession, would much more unsettle 
the text of the Rule of Faith, as a Rule. The two texts of 
the German Confession differ much less than the texts of the 
Textus Receptus of the Greek, and of Tischendorfs Eighth 
Edition. It does not disturb our faith that we have criti- 
cally diverse texts of the Rule, for they teach the same faith, 
nor will it disturb oar confession that we have slightly 



360 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

diverse, critical texts of the German form of the Creed, for they 
confess the same faith. Second : The differences, even of a 
critical kind, are of a very trifling character. Third: The 
Editio Princeps of Melanchthon is the highest critical author- 
ity. Fourth : While the text of the Book of Concord has the 
highest Confessional authentication, and ought not to be 
changed, except by authority of the Church, it is perfectly 
consistent with this, that the Editio Princeps be used as an aid 
in interpreting it. Identical as the two texts are, for the most 
part, in their very words, absolutely identical in doctrine, we 
may thank God that we have in the two the historical evi- 
dence of the untiring conscientiousness of effort on the part of 
our Fathers, to give the most perfect form of sound words to 
the one faith, and that the two texts, so far from disturbing, 
fix more absolutely that one sense of the Confession, the percep- 
tion of which is essential to real unity on the part of those 
who profess to accept it. 

The Papal Confutation was read before the Emperor, Aug. 3d. 

The second Article was approved so far as, 1 : " they confessed 

with the Catholic Church, that the fault of origin is truly sin- 

iv. Ti.e Papal condemning and bringing eternal death to those 

confutation. w k are nQt \ )0rn a g a } n f Baptism and the Holy 

Ghost ; as also in their condemnation of the Pelagians, ancient 
and modern, whom the Church had already condemned." 

2. " But the declaration of the Article, that original sin is 
this, that men are born without the fear of God, without trust 
toward God, is to be entirely rejected, since it is manifest to 
every Christian that to be without the fear of God, and trust 
in Him, is rather the actual offence of the adult, than the fault 
of a new-born babe, which is not yet able to exercise reason, as 
the Lord saith unto Moses, (Deut. i. 39:) 'Your little ones, 
which in that day had no knowledge between good and evil.' ' 

3. " But that declaration is also rejected in which they call 
the fault of origin, fleshly appetite (concupiscentia), if by this 
they mean that fleshly appetite is sin, which also remains sin 
in a child after Baptism.'' 

4. " For long ago the Apostolic See condemned two Arti- 
cles of Martin Luther, the second and third, concerning sin 



A COMMISSION OF FOURTEEN PERSONS. 361 

remaining in a child after Baptism, and in regard to the incen- 
tive (fomes) which prevents the soul from entering heaven." 

5. " But if, as St. Augustine uses the term, they assert that 
the fault of origin is carnal appetite, which in Baptism ceases 
to he sin, their doctrine is to he received, since St. Paul also 
teacheth, Eph. ii. 3, we are all born the children of wrath, and, 
Rom. v. 12, in Adam we have all sinned." * 

Seven persons on each side were appointed to compare the 
views of the Protestants (Lutherans) and Romanists. On each 
side the commission consisted of two princes, two ^ T , 

*- m 7 V. A commis- 

jurists, and three theologians. The Romish theo- sion of fourteen 
logians were Eck, Wimpina and Cochleus: the persons - 
Protestant theologians were Melanchthon, Schnepf and Bren- 
tius. Spalatin was added to the commission as notary. 

1. Before this commission, the Lutheran Confessors pre- 
sented the following explanation of the part of the second 
Article which had been objected to : " When it is said in the 
second Article, in the Latin, that man is born by nature with- 
out trust in God, and without fear of God, the language is to 
be understood not alone of children who are too young to have 
these emotions, but it means that when they are grown they 
cannot, by their natural powers, have the fear of God, and 
trust in Him. And to be born thus, without this power and 
gift, is a defect of that righteousness which ought to have been 
derived to us from Adam (had he not fallen). In the German 
this Article is so clearly stated, that it cannot be impugned, 
for it is there said that ' We are not by nature able to fear 
God, and trust in Him, in which words adults are also em- 
braced.' 

"In regard to the natural inclinations, we maintain, that the 
nature of sin remains, but the condemnation is removed by 
baptism." f 

2. In regard to the second Article, Dr. Eck remarked 
that, in the main part, it was in conformity with the teaching 
of the Christian Church, but was defective in the definition, 
and in calling fleshly appetite original sin, and in maintaining 

* Latin in Ease's L. S. Proleg. lxxviii. German in Chytrseus, H. A. 0. 236, b. 
f Muller's Hist. Protestat. 746. Latin : Coelestinus, iii. 55. 



362 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

that it remained sin before and after baptism ; though, if the 
terms were employed as St. Augustine used them, there would 
be a logomachy, rather than an actual diversity between the 
parties. 

Melanchthon, in reply, begged leave to make an explanation 
in regard to two points — -first, as to the words " without fear 
and trust ; " and second, as to the incitement {fames) to sin. 
His explanation was, that he had wished to avoid the scholastic 
phraseology, in which original sin is styled, the defect of original 
righteousness (carentia rectitudinis originalis), which he had 
expressed in the words, " without fear and trust," but the sense 
was the same. 

Dr. Eck replied, that Melanchthon's form and mode of ex- 
pression were new, otherwise they would already have agreed 
on the Article ; but as there had been only an avoidance of the 
ordinary term, the views of the two parties might be consid- 
ered as harmonized. On the second point, Dr. Eck acknowl- 
edged that the material of sin remains. The two parties were 
considered therefore as having agreed upon this Article.* 
The statement of the result in this point, made by the Romish 
portion of the commission to the Emperor (August 23d), is as 
follows : — "In this Article they agree with us, and rightly con- 
demn the Pelagians and others, as, for example, the Zwing- 
lians and Anabaptists, who deny original sin. But in the defi- 
nition of original sin they did not agree with us. The 
Lutherans, finally agreeing with our opinions, say, that 
original sin is a want of original righteousness, that the 
condemnation of this sin is removed in baptism, but that the 
incitement (fames), or fleshly appetite, remains in men even 
after baptism." 

An ample and admirable vindication of the Article against 
the Romish Church, the Church which canonizes and deserts 
Augustine, and reprobates and follows Pelagius, is found in the 
Apology of the Confession. 

In beginning the analysis of the Second Article of the 
Augsburg Confession, its relations to the Articles between 
which it is placed are worthy of notice. The First Article 

* From Spalatin's Protocol, in Muller's Hist., 748. 



RELATION OF SECOND ARTICLE TO FIRST. 363 

treats of God in His essence, and in His creation or creative 
work. The Third Article treats of Christ, and of His redemp- 
tory work. These two Articles are naturally, and Re i ationofth e 
indeed necessarily, connected by the Second Article, second Article to 
which shows how the creature of God, formed T hird. The Ab- 
originally in the moral likeness of God, comes to ysis> 
need a Redeemer. 

This Article of the Confession, if analyzed, will be found to 
present either in so many words, or by just inference, the fol- 
lowing points : 

I. The doctrine of original sin is taught with great unanim- 
ity by our Churches. 

II. The true doctrine of sin presupposes a right anthropology, 
a true doctrine of man. 

III. The time of the operation of original sin is the whole 
time subsequent to the fall of Adam. 

IV. The persons affected by it are all human beings born in 
the course of nature. 

V. The mode of the perpetuation of original sin is that of 
the natural extension of our race. 

VI. The great fact asserted in this doctrine is this, that all 
human beings are conceived in and born with sin. 

VII. This sin results or reveals its working in these 
respects : 

1. That all human beings are born without the fear of God. 

2. That they are born without trust and love toward God. 

3. That they are born with concupiscence, i. e., that from 
their birth they are full of evil desire and evil propensity. 

4. That they can have by nature no true fear, nor love of 
God, nor faith in God. 

VIII. The essence of original sin involves that this disease 
or vice of origin is truly sin. 

IX. The natural consequence of this original sin is this, 
that it condemns and brings now also eternal death. 

X. The natural consequence is actually incurred by all who 
are not born again. 

XI. When the new birth takes place it is invariably wrought 
by the Holy Spirit. 



364 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

XII. This new birth by the Holy Spirit has baptism as an 

ORDINARY MEAN. 

XIII. Baptism is the only ordinary mean of universal 
application. 

XIV. Our Church condemns : 

1. The Pelagians. 

2. All others who deny that the vice of origin is sin. 

3. All who contend that man by his own strength as a 
rational being can be justified before God. 

4. Who thus diminish the glory of the merit of Christ, and 
of his benefits. 

In enlarging upon this analysis of the Second Article, it is 
to be noticed then, 

I. It affirms the unity of the Evangelical Church in the 
unity of the doctrine of Original Sin. The first words of the 
cimrch in the First Article are understood before all the articles, 
naisiT ' to wit : "The Churches among us teach, with 
great accord" (magno consensu). " It is taught and held 
with unanimity." 

The Augsburg Confession avoided all minor matters, and all 
statements of doctrine, in regard to which there was any 
difference among those who presented it, who were the author- 
ized representatives of their Churches. It embraces only the 
leading fundamental articles of the Evangelical system, and 
the minimum of detail in regard to these. 

A Lutheran, historically and honestly such, cannot therefore 
hold less than the Augsburg Confession ; hence it is as true now, 
as it was when the Confession was given, that our Lutheran 
Churches hold, confess, and teach the same doctrine of Original 
Sin, among themselves, to wit, the very doctrine confessed by 
our Fathers at Augsburg. 

If men like Wegscheider, Bretschneider, and other Rational 
ists, or if Arminians, or Pelagians, or Semi-Pelagians, or for the 
matter of that Demi-semi-pelagians, who choose to call them- 
selves Lutherans, reject the doctrine, it only proves that they 
are willing to bear a name to which they have no just claim 
whatever. It is the distinctive position of the Reformation 
with which, over against Rome, it stands or falls, that that 



ANTHROPOLOGY. 365 

which properly constitutes, defines, and perpetuates in unity a 
Church, is its doctrine, not its name or organization. While a 
Church retains its proper identity it retains of necessity its 
proper doctrine. Deserting its doctrine it loses its identity. 
The Church is not a body which hears its name like England, 
or America, which remain equally England and America, 
whether savage or civilized, Pagan or Christian, Monarchical or 
Republican. Its name is one which properly indicates its faith 
— and the faith changing, the Church loses its identity. 
Pagans may become Mohammedans, but then they are no longer 
Pagans — they are Mohammedans. Jews may become Chris- 
tians, but then they are no longer Jews in religion. A Mani- 
chean man, or Manichean Church, might become Catholic, but 
then they would be Manichean no more. A Romish Church 
is Romish ; a Pelagian Church is Pelagian ; a Socinian Church 
is Socinian, though they call themselves Protestant, Evangel- 
ical, or Trinitarian. If the whole nominally Lutheran Church 
on earth should repudiate the Lutheran doctrine, that doctrine 
would remain as really Lutheran as it ever was. A man, or 
body of men, may cease to be Lutherans, but a doctrine which 
is Lutheran once, is Lutheran forever. Hence, now, as from the 
first, that is not a Lutheran Church, in the proper and histor- 
ical sense, which cannot ex animo declare that it shares in 
the accord and unanimity with which each of the Doctrines 
of the Augsburg Confession was set forth. 

II. The doctrine of the Second Article rests upon the pre- 
suppositions of a sound general Anthropology. 

1. It presupposes a sound view of man as the proper subject 
of redemption, capable of it and needing it. This is implied in 
the very location of the Doctrine. Man is the subject of redemp- 
tion, and hence appears, not as the angels do, simply 

Fty , n . , • ? , . K Anthropology. 

as a creature of God, and within theology in its 
strictest sense (as the doctrine concerning God), but in a place, 
which is bounded upon the one side by Theology, on the other 
by Soteriology. Man, in his two states of integrity and cor- 
ruption, touches the Theology which goes before, the sote- 
riology which follows after. He stands in the Augsburg 
Confession where he now stands in nature, in history, and 



366 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

in grace, between God the Creator, and Christ the Re- 
deemer. 

2. It presupposes a sound definition of man, as God's last and 
highest earthly creature, consisting of body and soul, having 
personality, freedom, moral accountability, and immortality. 
It rests upon the old idea of man expressed in the definition 
of Hollazius : "Man is an animal, consisting of a rational soul 
and an organic body, formed by God, endowed with his image, 
in the first creation, that he might unfeignedly worship his 
Creator, might live in holiness, and attain eternal blessedness." 

3. It presupposes that the Biblical History of man's creation 
is literally true, that the first pair were the direct imme- 
diate creation of God, and that all mankind have sprung from 
this one pair. All the dignity and possibilities of humanity rest 
upon its derivation in an extraordinary manner from God. The 
creation of the first man is narrated in general, in Gen. i. 26 seq., 
and more fully delineated in Gen. ii. 7 seq. The seeming 
diversities of the account arise from the difference of their 
objects. The derivation of all mankind from a single pair, is 
distinctly taught in the Holy Scriptures, and we find nothing 
whatever in the facts of natural science to render it doubt- 
ful. Science establishes the fact, that the whole human race 
is of one species. It of course cannot say whether the race has 
sprung from one pair or not, but science demonstrates that the 
race might have sprung from one pair, inasmuch as they all 
belong to one species ; what science shows to be possible, reve- 
lation distinctly teaches. Science moreover exhibits the fol- 
lowing facts : 

i. That nature is economical in its resources ; that there is no 
waste of means, and as one pair is sufficient to have originated 
the population of the globe, the scientific presumption is 
strong, that there was but one pair. 

ii. Natural science shows, that only animals of the same 
species produce a permanently fertile offspring. "Where animals, 
though not of the same species, are sufficiently near in species to 
have offspring, that offspring is invariably either absolutely ster- 
ile, or the power of propagation runs out speedily. Thus, to take 
a familiar example, the mule is the offspring of the horse and 



ANTHROPOLOGY. 367 

the ass, and the mule is barren. But the children resulting 
from the union of the most widely diverse human races are 
permanently fertile ; their posterity is extended from generation 
to generation, so that in all countries, where there is a ming- 
ling of races, extreme in their diversity, there are terms indi- 
cative of near, and of increasingly remote relations. Such 
terms, for example, are : Mulatto, Quadroon, Octoroon, Mes- 
tizo, and many others. 

iii. The traditions of the races largely point to a common 
origin. The history of man accounts for some of the most dif- 
ficult facts, in regard to the distribution of mankind from one 
centre, and overthrows the very hypotheses which seem to have 
the largest amount of a priori probability. 

iv. The languages of mankind contribute a great deal of evi- 
dence as to the original unity of the races, which have become 
widely sundered. We ourselves cannot speak a sentence of 
our native tongue, be it German or English, without giving 
evidence that the whole of the Germanic race, of which the Eng- 
lish is a part, are of East Indian origin. The population of 
this New Continent, and the demonstrably oldest race of the 
Old Continent, speak languages which had a common origin. 
Both drew their language from that primitive tongue, of which 
the Sanscrit is the oldest existing remnant. 

The doctrine of the " Unity of the Human Race" is impor- 
tant in its bearing on the recognition of the equality and fra- 
ternity of all mankind. It is essentially connected with just 
views of original sin, and the true view of the nature of 
redemption. Although modern science has sometimes been 
perverted to the weakening of man's faith in this great doc- 
trine, yet the most eminent men of science, whether Christian 
or not, have united in the judgment, that science does not 
weaken , by any of its facts, the Scripture witness to the unity of 
the human race. 

The hypotheses which are opposed to the Scripture doctrine 
of the Unity of the Human Race, are in general these : 

The theory of the Coadamites, i. e. of the creation of several 
original races. 

The theory of the Preadarnites, of men before Adam. This 



368 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

was specially developed by Isaac Peyrerius, in his work, Prce- 
adamitcE, Amsterdam, 1655. He took the ground that in Gen. 
i. 26 is narrated the creation of the first man, and in Gen. ii. 
is narrated the later creation of Adam, from whom the Jews 
spring. 

The theory of Autochthons, which is the prevalent view 
of skeptical naturalists, is that the race came from the earth, in 
its original condition, by what is called " generatio eqitivoca:" 
or that man is the result of the development of a lower 
organization into a higher. 

4. This Second Article presupposes that subsequent to the first 
creation of man, which was immediate, all human beings are the 
mediate creatures of God, and that consequently neither the body 
nor soul of children results from an immediate creation by God, 
but that both are mediated in the divine order of nature, 
through the parents. 

As the first of our race were the immediate creation of God, 
so the Bible teaches that their descendants are the mediate 
creation of God. Ps. cxxxix. 13 ; Acts xvii. 26 ; Heb. xii. 9. 

The derivation of man from God, now. may therefore be de- 
scribed as a mediate creation, through omnipotence exercised ordi- 
narily, while the creation of Adam was immediate, by omnipo- 
tence in its absoluteness. 

The propagation, or origination of the human soul, has 
The propaga- been explained by three theories, viz : Preex- 
t«m of the soui. istmce . Qreationism : Traducianism. 

The theory of Preexistence was maintained by Plato, who 
dwelt upon a seemingly dim recollection of a former condition, 
anamneesis. It went over from Plato through Philo, to 
Origen, but never met with general acceptance in the Church, 
and was expressly condemned in the Council of Constantinople 
in 543. In recent times, it has been defended by Kant, who 
thinks, in his work " Religion within the bounds of Pure Reason," 
that to the explanation of the radical evil in man is required 
the intelligible fact of a decision made by him at some former 
time. Schelling has maintained the same view in his u Philo- 
sophical Investigation, in regard to the Essence of Freedom," 1809. 

It has also been most ably defended by Julius Mueller, in his 



PROPAGATION OF THE SOUL. 369 

great work "On Sin " (4th Ed., 1858), (translated into English, 
Clark's For. Libr.,) who employs it to solve the problem of* 
Original Sin. Nowhere, however, has the theory been put more 
beautifully, than in the lines of one of our great English poets, 
Wordsworth, in his " Intimations of Immortality, from the Rec- 
ollections of Childhood." In that poem he makes this noble 
statement of the Platonic theory : 

" Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
And cometh from afar. 
Not in entire forgetfulness, 
And not in utter nakedness, 
But, trailing clouds of glory, do we come, 
From Heaven, which is our home." 

But beautiful as is this theory, and not without speciousness, 
it will not bear the test of logic, nor of the witness of Scrip- 
ture. It only cuts the knot ; it simply throws back the 
question, puts it out of sight, and does not answer it. It is an 
obvious subterfuge to get rid of a perplexity, and is like the 
hopeless cosmography of the Hindoos, except that it stops at 
the elephant. It is opposed to the great fact of our human 
experience, as to the similarity between the soul of the parent 
and child, and is contradicted by the general drift of Scripture, 
and specially by Gen. iii. and the whole argument in Rom. v. 12, 
seq. It in truth involves simply an undeveloped metempsychosis, 
a transmigration of the soul. Its latest defender is an American, 
Dr. Edward Beecher, who lays this theory as part of the basis of 
what he claims to be the solution of the "Conflict of Ages. " (1854.) 

The theory of Preexistence in another form asserts simply 
that all souls were created at the beginning, by the word of 
God, and are united, at conception, with the human organism. 

Immediate Creationism maintains that there is a direct 
creation of the soul by God, and that about the fortieth day 
after conception it is united with the embryo. The passages 
of Scripture which have been appealed to sustain this view 
are Jer. xxxviii. 16; Isa. Ivii. 16; Zach. xii. 1; Acts xvii. 
28 ; Ps. cxix. 73 ; Job x. 12 ; Do. xxxiii. 4 ; Numb. xvi. 22 ; 

24 



370 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Do. xxvii. 16 ; Heb. xii. 9, and in the Apocryphal books, 2 
Mace. vii. 22. Jerome asserts that this was the view of the 
Church, but this is an over-statement of the fact, although it 
certainly was the view of a number of the Fathers. Clemens 
Alexandrinus says : " Our soul is sent from Heaven." Lactantius 
says : " Soul cannot be born of souls." It is the predominant 
view of the Roman Church. Most of the Reformed (Calvin- 
istic) theologians maintain it, and usually with the theory that 
by the union of the soul with the body the soul becomes sinful. 

But this theory is really untenable. The strongest of the 
Scripture passages quoted to sustain it, imply no more than 
that the spirit of man has higher attributes than his body, is pre- 
eminent as God's work, and the chief seat of his image, with- 
out at all implying that His creation of the soul is a direct one. 
It would be quite as easy, not only to show from other pas- 
sages, but to show from a number of these, that the body of 
man is the direct creation of God, which, nevertheless, no one 
will maintain. 

To Pelagians, and the Pelagianizing Romanists, this theory 
indeed is not encumbered with the great moral difficulty arising 
from the acknowledgment of Original Sin, but to all others, 
this view involves, at its root, unconscious Gnosticism. It 
makes matter capable of sin and of imparting sinfulness. It 
represents the parents of a child as really but the parents of 
a mere material organism-, within which the nobler part, all 
that elevates it, all that loves and is loved, is in no respect 
really their child. On this theory, no man could call his 
child really his own. He has no more relation, as a parent, to 
its soul, which is the child, than any other man in the world, 
and is as really the father of that which constitutes a human 
being, to every other person's children as he is to his own. 
Moreover, with all the explanations and ingenious resorts 
which have been found necessary in retaining this theory, there 
is no escaping the inference, that it makes God the author of 
Sin. According to this theory, God creates a perfect, spotless, 
holy soul, and then places it in a polluted body; that is, He 
takes what is absolutely innocent, and places it, where it inev- 
itably, not by choice, but of necessity, is tainted with sin, 



STATUS INTEGRITATIS. 371 

justly subject to damnation, and in a great majority of cases 
actually reaches eternal damnation. "We do not hesitate to 
say, that though the doctrine has been held by good men, who 
have guarded with great care against obvious abuse, it could 
be pressed until it would assume almost the character of a 
u Doctrine of Devils." 

The third view is that of Traducianism, or mediate Cre- 
ationism : the theory that both body and soul are derived from 
the parents. This theory corresponds with the prevailing and 
clear statements of the Holy Scriptures, as, e. g. Gen. v. 3 ; Acts 
xvii. 24-26. It is a doctrine absolute^ demanded by the exist- 
ence of original sin, and the doctrine that God is not the author 
of sin. This view is defended, among the Fathers, especially by 
Tertidlian, Athanasius, Gregory of Nissen, and many others. 
Augustine remained undecided, confessing his ignorance, 
yet leaning strongly to the Traducian View. The Lutheran 
Divines, with very few exceptions, are Traducian. The ex- 
pressions in the Symbolical Books, such as in the Catechism, 
" I believe that God has created me," and in the Formula of 
Concord, " God has created our souls and bodies after the fall," 
are meant of the mediate creation, not of the direct. 

The true theory of Traducianism is, that it is a creation by God, 
of xohich the parents are the divinely ordained, organ. The soul of 
the child is related mysteriously, yet as closely, to the soul of 
the parent as its body is to theirs, and the inscrutable mys- 
tery of the eternal generation of God's Son from the absolute 
Spirit, mirrors itself in the origin of the human soul. 

5. This Article presupposes, antecedent to all human sin, a 
state of integrity. God said, Gen. i. 26, " Let us make man in our 
image, after our likeness." This image of God in man Status int . 
is something which is not absolutely lost, but is tatis, or the state 
fearfully marred. See 1 Cor. xi. 7 ; James iii. 9 ; ° egrity ' 
Eph. iv. 24 ; and Col. iii. 10. The traditions of the race pre- 
serve the memory of a golden age, a time of innocence and 
happiness ; the Confession implies that the ra,ce has fallen 
from a condition of glory and bliss. Man was created with an 
ability not to sin, which, had he been faithful, would have been 
merged into a condition, in which he could not sin: the "posse 



372 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

non peccare " would have become a " non posse peccare," and the 
" 'posse non mori "would have been merged into " non posse mori." 
The abode of unfallen man was the Garden of Eden, or 
Paradise. " The state of integrity was that happy condition of 
man in which he was conformed to the image of God. The 
' image of God ' is natural perfection, consisting, in conformity 
with God the prototype, in wisdom, righteousness, purity, im- 
mortality, and majesty. It was concreate in the parents of our 
race, so that they rightly knew and worshipped our Crea- 
tor, and lived in holiness, and would have obtained a yet more 
glorious blessedness."* 

" In the widest conception of the image of God, there per- 
tains to it everything which marks man as a rational being. 
In this general sense, the image of God is not lost entirely, 
though obscured. In its more specific sense, it embraces the 
religious element in man, and its chief part is original righteous- 
ness. This involves the conformity of the understanding with 
the knowledge and wisdom of God ; conformity of the will with 
the holiness of God, and with freedom ; conformity of the affec- 
tions with the purity of God. The secondary conformity consisted, 
partly, in the conformity within man, and partly, in that which 
was without man. The body of man unfallen was an image of the 
immortality of God. It was free from suffering and from calam- 
ity. It imaged the eternity of God by its immortality, its free- 
dom from necessity of dying.. Rom. v. 12 ; vi. 23. The perfec- 
tion without man, which belongs to the image of God, was con- 
formity of his outward dominion, with the power and majesty 
of the Creator. He was Lord of the world, in which he had 
been placed ; all the creatures of the world, in which he had 
been placed, were under his dominion. Gen. i. 26, ib. ii. 19." f 
Over against just and Scriptural views of the image of God 
are arrayed first the views which suppose it to have been one of 
corporeal likeness. This was the view of the Anthropomor- 
phites. Next the Socinians and many Arminians, conceding 
that it was in conjunction with immortality, yet restricted it 
to the dominion over the animal world. The Pelagians and 

*Hollazius. 

f Quenstedt, See Hutterus Rediv. (Hase) § 80, and Lutbardt Komp. d. Dogm. \ 41 



THE STATE OF CORRUPTION. 373 

Nationalists suppose the image of God in its religious aspect 
to have been little, if at all, injured. The Romish theology 
has a Pelagianizing tendency. The Fathers of the Greek 
Church distinguish between the image of God and his likeness, 
referring the one to the rational nature of man, and the other to 
the spiritual nature of man. 

The Reformation found a deep corruption in this, as in other 
doctrines. Low views of justification prevailed because men 
had low views of sin. Over against the spurious theology of 
the Church of Rome, the Apology says : " Original righteousness 
was not only a just blending of the qualities of the body, but, 
moreover, these gifts, the assured knowledge and fear of God, 
trust in God, and the power of rectitude." The Formula Con- 
cordiae :* " Original righteousness is the concreate image of God, 
according to which, man in the beginning was created in troth, 
holiness, and righteousness." Hollazius says, " The principal 
perfections 'constituting the image of God, are excellence of 
understanding, perfect holiness, and freedom of will, purity of 
desires, and a most sweet consent of the affections, with the 
dictates of the understanding, and the government of the will, 
all in conformity with the wisdom, holiness, and purity of God. 
The less principal perfections of this image were : freedom 
from every taint of sin in the body, immunity from corrupting 
passions in the body, its immortality, and the full power of 
ruling all earthly creatures." 

6. To a correct conception of original sin it presupposes cor- 
rect views of sin in general, as having its proper cause in the 
finite will, not in the infinite will, and as embracing the condi- 
tion of the finite will, as well as its overt acts. 

The need of redemption rests upon the fall from God through 
sin. Sin is the transgression of the law, or rather, it is that 
which is not consonant with the law, it is the anti- „,, 

The state ot 

legal, the unlegal, and the non-legal ; John iii. 4, corruption, 
avofxia. Melanchthon defines sin to be : "a defect, or inclination, 
or action, conflicting with the law of God." Calovius defines 
it still more compactly, but with the same sense, as : " Illegal- 
ity, or deformity from the law: that is, the opposite to conform- 

* " Solida Declaratio," p. 640. 



374 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ity with the law." Deformity, as here used, means a " want 
of conformity" Midler, in his great work on "The Christian 
Doctrine of Sin," defines it to be a turning away from the love 
of God to selfishness. In the Holy Scriptures, sin is considered 
as enmity against God ; the carnal mind is enmity against God, 
Rom. viii. 7. By the general consciousness of sin is derived 
the general consciousness of the need of redemption. Gal. iii. 22. 
It pertains to the very essence of religion, that sin, which is the 
opposite of religion, takes its origin not from the Creator, but 
from the creature ; and however systems may have tended logi- 
cally, actually to make God the author of sin, no system has unre- 
servedly admitted such a conclusion. St. James says : " Let 
no man, when he is tempted, say, 'I am tempted of God, 5 for 
God is incapable of being tempted of evil, and he truly tempts 
no one ; but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away by 
the desire, which is his own, that is, by his own lust." The argu- 
ment of St. James is, that God's incapacity of being himself 
tempted to sin, is evidence that he abhors it, and no being vol- 
untarily causes that which he abhors. If God could be the 
cause of sin in others, he would necessarily be the cause of it 
in himself ; in fact, to be the cause of sin in others is to be 
sinful ourselves. If God be the cause of sin, he would himself 
be a sinner ; but as it is conceded that God is himself free from 
sin, he cannot be its cause. Hence, the Augsburg Confession, 
Art. XIX., says: "Although God creates and preserves na- 
ture, yet the cause of sin is the will of the evil, i. e. of the 
Devil and of wicked men, which, God not assisting, turns itself 
from God ; as Christ says, John viii. 44, when he speaketh a 
lie, he speaketh of himself." When the Confession says " non 
adjuvante Deo" it does not mean that God does not assist iu 
the repression of this sin, and that consequently it takes place, 
but means that God in no sense assists to the production of 
sin ; that proceeds from the will of the evil in its independent 
self-moving power. The German expression parallel with this 
is, that " the cause of sin is the will of the Devil and of all the 
godless, which, so soon as God has taken away his hand, turns 
itself from God to the evil." But, by "the hand of God" 
here is not meant the moral power by which he sways the will 



THE STATE OF CORRUPTION. 375 

to good, but simply his repressive external power, and the 
meaning is, that the sinful will consummates itself in sinful 
act, wherever it is not repressed by the Providence of God. 
Quenstedt embodies the faith of our Church, when he says 
emphatically : " God is in no respect whatever the efficient 
cause of sin as such, neither in part, nor in the whole ; neither 
directly, nor indirectly ; neither per se, nor by accident ; neither 
in the species of Adam's fall, nor in the genus of sin of any kind. 
In no respect is God the cause or author of sin, or can be called 
such. See Ps. v. 5, ib. xlv. 12, Zach. viii. 17, 1 John i. 5, 
James i. 13-17. But, whatever there is of want of conformity 
with the law, avo^ta, that is to be ascribed to the free will of the 
creature itself, acting of its own accord. See further, Hosea 
xiii. 9, Matt, xxiii. 37." 

In regard to these passages, which speak of a hardening on 
the part of God, such as Exod. vii. 3, John vii. 10, Pom. ix. 18, 
Hollazius says : " God does not harden ^aen causally, or effec- 
tively, by sending hardness into the hearts of men, but (judi- 
cialiter,) judicially, permissively, and desertively." 

The standing sophism against just views of original sin is 
that nothing is sin except it be voluntary ; and that nothing 
is voluntary, unless it be done with a distinct consciousness 
and purpose of the will. But, over against this, the Scriptures 
and sound logic teach, that to a true conception of what is vol- 
untary, i. e. is of, or pertains to the will, belongs the state of the 
will previous to any act. Before there can be a voluntary act, 
there must be a state of the will which conditions that act. 
Original sin, therefore, is voluntary siu on this broader and 
more Scriptural conception of what is voluntary. The lN T ew 
England theology, in our country, has laid special stress 
upon the false conception of what is voluntary. The Apol- 
ogy of the Augsburg Confession says: "The adversaries (i. e. 
Pelagianizing Romanists,) contend that nothing is sin ex- 
cept it be voluntary. These expressions may hold good 
among philosophers, in judging of civil morals, but they have 
nothing to do with the judgment of God." Hollazius says: 
" The element of the voluntary does not enter into a definition 
of sin, generically considered. A sin is said to be voluntary, 



376 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

either subjectively, -as it inheres in the will, or efficiently, as it 
results from the deliberate will. In this last respect, not all 
sin is voluntary. This is held over against the Papists and So- 
cinians, who define sin exclusively as the voluntary transgres- 
sion of the law." 

7. It presupposes that from the original state of integrity 
there was a Fall of Man into a state of sin. 

The original Fall of man from God resulted, according to 
The Fan of ^en. iii., from external temptation and inward 
Man desire, leading to doubt of the Divine goodness, 

and transgression of the Divine command. The consequences 
of this Fall were : terror before the presence of God, not filial 
reverence, but servile fear ; the expulsion from Paradise ; the 
troubles of earthly life — temporal death only prevented by the 
mercy of God — from passing into eternal death. 

The Fall of man is, throughout, presupposed as a fact, in the 
whole Biblical teaching in regard to original sin. Ration- 
alism and Pseudophilosophism have treated it as a fable ; 
an allegorical delineation of the passing away of the golden 
age, a myth of the transition from instinct to moral free- 
dom, or of the pernicious result of longing after a higher 
condition. " Without the Fall," says Hegel, " Paradise 
would have been but a park for beasts." The literal historical 
sense of the narrative of the Fall is, nevertheless, the only one 
consistent with the obvious intent of the Holy Scriptures. 
There is nothing in the narrative unworthy of God, or 
out of keeping with the laws of the human soul. God gave 
the commandment, allowed the temptation, that, by it, man's 
natural holiness might be strengthened, if he would, by his free 
will. The serpent was but the organ of the Devil ; the essence 
of the divine command lay in its setting forth love to God, 
and acquiescence to His will, as that which should be supreme 
in man. The transgression was an apostasy from this. The sim- 
pler the test, the clearer was its issue, the sublimer its moral mean- 
ing. The more insignificant the outward act, the more certain it 
is that the grandeur of the principle will not be confounded with 
the grandeur of the circumstances. The principle of the neces- 
sity of the absolute acquiescence of the will of the creatures in 



THE FALL OF MAN. 377 

the will of the Creator has none of the splendor of drapery in 
Paradise that it has in the revolt of the angels in heaven, and 
it stands out, for this reason, more nakedly, sharply, and legibly 
in the history of the Fall of Adam, than in that of the fall of 
Satan. The littleness of the spirit of sin may readily he for- 
gotten in the dazzling array of its raiments, or in the baleful 
dignity of its mischievous results. 

Hollazius defines the first sin thus: — " The first sin of man, 
or Fall, is the transgression of the law of Paradise, in which 
our first parents violated the divine interdict which for- 
bade them to eat the fruit of the 4 tree of knowledge of 
good and evil,' being persuaded thereto by the Devil, and 
abusing the freedom of will, and thus brought on them- 
selves, and on their posterity, born of them in the order 
of nature, the loss of the divine image, grievous fault (culpam), 
and liability (reatum) to temporal and eternal punishment. The 
cause of the first sin is not God, but the Devil, who persuaded, 
and man who transgressed the Divine law, being overcome by 
the persuasion of the Devil , and abusing the freedom of the will. 
Our first parents, in the Fall, directly violated a positive law, but 
indirectly and virtually, by their disobedience, broke through 
the restraints of the whole moral law. The Fall of Adam was 
not necessary to manifest the justice and mercy of God." 

" This deflection," says Quenstedt, " embraces in its course 
certain distinct acts of sin, which may be classed as follows: 
i. Incredulity, — not having faith in the word of God. ii. Af- 
fectation of the likeness of God. iii. A purpose springing from 
this transgression of the law. iv. A carrying out of this pur- 
pose into action" In the Fall of our first parents began original 
sin. " It is called," says Quenstedt, ." original sin, not because 
it existed either from the beginning or origin of the world, or 
of man, but partly, because it takes its origin in man, with the 
origin of each man ; partly, because it is the fount and origin 
of all actual sin." Tertullian probably first introduced the term. 

A distinction is drawn between " peccatum originale origi- 
nans," and " peccatum originale originatum." The latter is by 
preeminence styled " original sin." Thus " original sin," if not 
by imputation, yet by some form of association, passed over to 



378 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

all the posterity of Adam and Eve. The Formula Concordice 
says : " The hereditary evil is that fault (culpa) or liability (rea- 
tus) whereby it comes that we all, because of (propter) the dis- 
obedience of Adam and Eve, are under God's abhorrence, and 
are by nature children of wrath." * The Apology f says : " Some 
dispute that original sin is not a vice or corruption in the nature 
of man, but only a servitude or condition of mortality, which 
they, who are propagated from Adam, without vice of their own, 
but on account of another's fault, inherit. We, that we may 
show that this doctrine displeases us, make mention of concu- 
piscence, and declare that a corrupt nature is born." Whatever, 
therefore, may be the relation of imputation to original sin, 
our Church holds it to be an impious opinion, that our misery 
and liability are merely the results of imputation. The pri- 
mary point is, that we do actually participate, in our nature, 
in the corruption wrought by the Fall. " Original sin is that 
vitiation of human nature arising from the fall of our first 
parents, accidental, (in the theological sense,) propagated by 
human conception, proper and real in all men, whereby they 
are destitute of the power of rightly knowing and worshipping 
God, and are constantly impelled to sin, and exposed to eternal 
death." 

III. The Second Article of the Confession sets forth the time 
Time. °f the operation of original sin, to wit, that of the 
whole period commencing with the Fall of Adam. 

This implies : — 

1. That man was created holy. He had original righteousness. 
Gen. i. 26, " Let us make man in our image, after our like- 
ness." In these words image is not one thing, and likeness 
another, but the word likeness defines the word image. An 
image may be like that of a mirror, a mere reflection ; but 
this image is one which makes real likeness or similitude. 
The grand element of the image of God in man, as created 
originally, is that which conforms him to what is most essen- 
tially Godlike in God ; that is, to His moral perfection, His 
holiness, purity, and truth. In a certain sense, the spirituality 
of man's nature, his immortality, his noble endowments of 

* Page 639. p. 9. fP. 51. p. 9. 



TIME. 379 

intellect, affectiou, and active power, and his place in creation, as 
lord and ruler of the world, are associated with and bound up 
with his bearing the image of God ; hence, in Gen. i. 26, im- 
mediately after the words " Let us make man" we have the 
words, "Let him have dominion" where " dominion" is not iden- 
tified with the "image," as some expositors would make it, but 
is dependent on the image and likeness, and is conditioned by it, 
for the ground of man's rule over the world is not his merely 
intellectual gifts, in which probably the devils, certainly the 
angels, surpass him, but the presumption and desire, on God's 
part, of his ruling it in righteousness and holiness. His in- 
tellectual powers are but the means by which his moral powers 
carry out their ends. 

The image of God is, preeminently, then, man's original 
holiness ; the conformity of his mind to the mind of God ; 
of his will to the will of God ; in short, whatever is most com- 
pletely and sharply antithetical to original sin. Just what he 
lost by sin, is preeminently what he possessed most completely 
in the image of God, and in the original righteousness, which 
was its vital part. That man's moral nature is that which 
has suffered most in the Fall, that his intellectual abilities, and 
his power of outward rule over nature, are left in comparative 
strength, is evidence that it was in his moral nature he 
stood nearest to God. The more glorious the image, the com- 
pleter was its wreck. That this judgment as to the image of 
God is correct, is shown by various passages of Scripture ; as, 
Eccl. vii. 29 ; 2 Cor. iii. 18 ; Eph. iv. 24 ; Col. iii. 10. 

2. That he lost this righteousness. From the exalted posi- 
tion nearest to God, he descended to the degradation of 
misery and sin. In short, as original righteousness made him 
like God in that which is most Godlike, so the Fall plunged 
him into that which, in its essence, is most remote from God. 
E"ow nothing is so completely in antagonism to God as sin. 
Ignorance is the counterpart to divine knowledge and wisdom ; 
weakness to divine omnipotence ; but sin is set against the 
very heart and moral glory of God. The ignorant and the 
weak may be children of God, and bear his image, but the 
sinful are sundered from Him by an impassable gulf ; though 



380 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

they had the knowledge of an archangel, and a might as 
near that of God as the creature's might can be, yet with sin, 
their image is that of the Devil, and not that of God. 

3. That with this loss, originated human sin. 

4. That man's nature thereby became a sinful one. Adam 
remained in the state to which the original or primary sin 
reduced him. All human nature at the time of the Fall was 
embraced in Adam and Eve ; they were then the human race ; 
they actually formed all human creatures ; therefore of neces- 
sity, when Adam and Eve fell, all human nature, then existing, 
fell ; all human creatures, actually existing, fell then as com- 
pletely as if there had been millions instead of two ; hence 
the human race and human nature fell. 

5. Lastly, under this thesis is asserted that original sin has 
continued in the world from that hour to the present. 

It is worthy of note that the Confession speaks of the Fall of 
Adam only ; Eve is not mentioned, though she was first in the 
transgression. Why at least is not the phrase, " Fall of our 
wi.y is Adam fi rsi parents f " In this the Confession strictly fol- 
ate mentioned? lows the line of Scripture representation: "By 
one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so 
death passed over upon all men." Rom. v. 12. In the 
Apostle's sense, sin did not enter into the world in Eve's trans- 
gression ; nor did death enter into the world by her sin ; at 
most, sin and death entered her. While she was yet alone in 
the transgression, sin had not yet entered the world, nor death 
by sin. What had been possible for Adam, even as to the res- 
toration of Eve, at this point, belongs perhaps to a sphere of 
speculation into which it is not wise to enter, but it is certain 
that the race yet stood in Adam. It was yet in his power to 
save mankind. The prohibition of the fruit of the tree of 
knowledge was given directly only to Adam, and took place 
before the creation of Eve, (Gen. ii. 17-21.) It bound the 
woman, not because God repeated it to her, but because she 
was, in the nature of the case, under the same law with her 
husband. After the Fall, God says to Adam : " Hast thou 
eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst 
not eat ?" — but to Eve, while His words imply her great guilt, 



WHY IS ADAM ALONE MENTIONED? 381 

He speaks of no such direct command. Eve was not co-ordi- 
nate with Adam, but represented in him. She sinned, per- 
sonally, in her own personal act, but, in the full sense, she fell 
only when Adam fell. 

Adam's body was first formed — the entrance of the breath 
of God made man, body and soul. Eve was taken from 
Adam, but this was no new inbreathing from God. She was 
the emanation, so to speak, of the whole man — the effluence 
of his body and soul, and the life of the whole race is that one 
united life. Eve is called the mother of all living ; but Adam 
is the source of all living, including Eve. There is then but one 
human life in the world — perpetuated and extended through 
the generations — the emanation of the first life — that of 
Adam. Hence the race has not fallen in Eve as well as in 
Adam — because her life also was derivative. The one primal 
life derived from Adam brings with it the impress of Adam's 
fallen nature. Our nature is his very nature in emanation, as 
our life of body and soul is his life in emanation — and as 
the very life and nature are transmitted, so are the Fall 
and its penalty transmitted. Adam's life and nature is the 
sine qua non of our life and nature — Adam's sin the sine qua 
lion of our sin. 

IV. The Confession teaches that the persons affected by 
original sin are all human beings born in the course of nature. 

This implies that, without exception, all the children of our 
race, alike all the children of the most \\o\y and of the most 
godless, have original sin. The character of the parent may, 
within a certain limit, benefit or injure the innate tendencies to 
character in the child ; but character is not nature. All human 
beings have the same nature. In this nature original sin 
inheres, and all alike inherit it. With reference to this inher- 
ited character, it is sometimes called hereditary sin. In German 
its usual title is " Erbsunde." 

In the doctrine that all men (omnes homines), born in the 
course of nature, have this sin, is implied the falseness of the 
Romish figment, in regard to the sinlessness of the mother of 
our Lord. It rejects the idea of the immaculate conception of 
Mary, which has been established in our own time as a 



382 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

doctrine of the Romish Church. The doctrine of "the immacu- 
late conception, to wit : that the Virgin Mary was conceived and 
born without sin, had been for centuries maintained by the Fran- 
ciscans, and denied by the Dominicans, but was set forth au- 
thoritatively by Pius IX. in 1854, as a doctrine of the Catholic 
Church.* The birth of Mary was a human birth, and hence, 
hers was a nature with the taint of original sin. 

In this thesis, moreover, is implied the freedom of our Lord 
from original sin, for his birth was not in the course of nature. 
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Apostles' Creed, Art. 
II.) ; He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit, of the Virgin Mary 
(Ficene Creed, Art. III.) ; and his birth was divine and super- 
natural. 

And here, it is impossible not to be struck with the beautiful, 
Scripture -like reticence of our Confession, for while it most 
clearly either states or implies that original sin has been in the 
world since Adam's Fall ; that without that Fall it would not 
have been ; that our natural descent from him actually is accom- 
panied, in every case, by the inheritance of the moral nature, 
into which, so to speak, he fell, it does not define how, theo- 
retically, the sin of Adam is related to us ; does not touch 
the question of imputation at all. The Augsburg Confession 
sets forth the chief Articles of Faith, the Faith of the Church 
universal, that is of the true Catholic Church, but the doctrine 
of imputation, as a theory, belongs to scientific theology. The 
Augsburg Confession presents the whole question, only in its 
great practical elements, as these in some form or other are 
grasped by faith, and take part in the general belief of the 
Church. 

We cannot recall a single passage, in any of our Confessions, 
in which the imputation of Adam's sin is alluded to, even in 
passing, as an Article of Faith. The Confessions say no more 
than that our fallen condition was " through the disobedience of 
Adam" or " on account of it" and expressly reject the idea that 
" original sin is derived to us by imputation only." f "We 

* See Preuss on the "Immaculate Conception, " which has been translated into 
English, and Pusey's Irenicon. 
f Formula Concordiae, 575. 



WHY IS ADAM ALONE MENTIONED? 383 

reject," says the Formula, " and condemn that doctrine 
which asserts that original sin is only a liability and debt 
derived to us, by the fault of another, without any cor- 
ruption of our own nature." These expressions, however, do 
not exclude the doctrine of imputation in every shape. It is a 
question of theology, as distinguished from the sphere of faith 
proper, and to that it should be referred. 

That all men are embraced in the operation of original sin, 
is clearly taught in the Holy Scriptures. 

1. It is taught in direct and positive assertion of the univer- 
sality of original sin. Rom. v. 12, " Wherefore, as by one man, 
sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so death 
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Mark in the 
passage the sphere of original sin ; the word " men," and the 
word "all," i. e. " all men." Death itself is declared to be the 
token and evidence, that all have sinned. The dominion of 
sin is as wide as the dominion of death, that is, it is universal. 
It shows that the operation is not limited to adults ; and 
that there may be no mistake in regard to this, as if men 
might suppose that infants were regarded as exceptions, it 
says in verse 14, " death reigned . . . even over them that had 
not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression," 
i. e. over infants, who had not sinned by conscious acts of 
transgression, as Adam and Eve did ; but, if infants come 
under it, a fortiori all others must. It adds in verse 15, "for 
if through the offence of one the many be dead," (Greek,) and 
in verse 18, "as by the offence of one, judgment came upon all 
men to condemnation," and in verse 19, " as by one man's dis- 
obedience, (the) many were made sinners." 

2. In the specification of the classes embraced in this 
universal operation of original sin. Eph. ii. 3: "We all were 
by nature children of wrath, even as others." By "we all," 
is meant the Jewish Christians. " We Jews ' even as others,' " 
i. e. Gentiles. Jews and Gentiles embrace mankind, and 
if even the members of God's elect race are subject to 
this law, a fortiori the Gentiles would be, if there were any 
distinction. 

3. In the Scriptural negation of any limitation of the uni- 



384 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

versality of original sin. Job xiv. 4, " Who can bring a clean 
thing out of an unclean ? not one." 

4. In the exceptional character of Jesus Christ, as alone free 
from original, as well as actual sin, in which is implied that 
all but He are born in sin. "He knew no sin," 2 Cor. v. 21, 
was "without sin," Heb. iv. 15. " He was holy, harmless, un- 
defiled, and separate from sinners," ib. vii. 26. In all this is 
implied more than our Saviour's freedom from acts of sin. To 
our Lord, and to Him alone belongs, among men, an untainted 
nature ; to every other child of Adam pertains the curse of 
original sin. To the freedom of our Lord's nature from orig- 
inal sin, it was essential that his conception should be of the 
Holy Ghost, and his birth out of the course of nature. They who 
are not thus conceived and born must have the taint of orig- 
inal sin, that is, as the Confession affirms : The whole race, 
whose conception and birth are in the sphere of nature, are con- 
ceived and born in sin. 

V. The next thesis of the Confession pertains to the mode of 
perpetuation of original sin. 

It connects this with the natural extension of our race. Not 
only are human beings born with it, but it originates 
with their natural life, and before their natural 
birth ; and hence, with reference to each human being, it 
comes to be called "original sin." It is the sin which is so 
mysteriously original with man. Its origin, and our origin, are 
simultaneous. It is originated when man is originated, and be- 
cause he is originated, and by his origination. Hence, the term 
original, which has been objected to in the statement of the 
doctrine, is more expressive and accurate than any that could 
be substituted for it. The great point in this thesis, is that sin 
passes into the life of the race, not by imitation, as the Pela- 
gians contend, but by hereditary congenital transmission, and 
that this propagation is its natural source. 

Over against the doctrine of Calvin and other speculators, 
who maintain that : " the progeny of Adam do not derive 
their corruption naturally from him, but that corruption de- 
pends upon, the ordination of God," (see Calvin, on Gen. iii. 6,) 
the Augsburg Confession distinctly connects original sin with 



FACT. 385 

the natural process of descent, " secundum naturam" i. e. with 
natural propagation, and natural birth ; and such is the clear 
teaching of the Holy Scriptures. Ps. li. 5, "Behold! I was 
shapen in iniquity." See Gen. v. 1 & 3 : in the first verse 
we have, " in the likeness of God made he him ; " and in the 
third verse this antithesis, " and Adam begat a son, after his 
image." So our Lord Jesus says, (John iii. 6,) " That which is 
horn of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is 
spirit." Eph. ii. 3, " "We all were by nature children of wrath," 
that is, as Tyndale, Cranmer, and others say, " were natural chil- 
dren of wrath." The sin of Adam is so related to the condition 
of the race, that by and because of our natural descent from 
him, sin and its penalty passes over to us. Eom. v. 12, " By 
one man sin entered the world." 

VI. Next the great fact is asserted, That all human beings 
are conceived and born in sin and with sin, — "la- 
scantur cum peccato," "In Siinden empfangen und 
geboren werden." 

This fact can be mentally separated from the particular theory 
upon which it rests. Even Pagans have acknowledged the 
fact. And those whose theory seemed irreconcilable with it, 
and those who have even denied it in downright terms, have 
been forced virtually to concede it. All the refinement in 
terms, in philosophy, in the mode of statement or of argument, 
has not been able to conceal the fact, that in, with, and under 
our human nature, there lies something evil ; foreign to the 
original condition of man ; foreign to the divine ideal, and to 
man's own better ideal; something derived from parent to child, 
producing misery, death, and despair ; something that is the 
power of all sinful results, and the seed of all sinful growths. 

The Scripture testimony to this great fact is very explicit. 
Gen. viii. 21, " The imagination of man's heart is evil from his 
youth," i. e. inclusively in his youth and ever after. Gen. vi. 
5, " God saw that the wickedness of man," etc., " ivas only evil 
continually." (Heb. lit. " evil all the day ; " margin — " The whole 
imagination.") The Hebrew word signifies not only the imag- 
ination, but also the purposes and desires. 

The actual condition of the race is depicted in the 14th Ps., 

25 



386 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

vs. 1, 2, 3, " They are corrupt, they have done abominable 
works, there is none that doeth good," (an absolute negation.) 
" The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of 
men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek 
God. They are all gone aside, they are altogether become 
filthy, there is none that doeth good, no not one." St. Paul 
quotes these words as of universal application, covering Jews 
as well as Gentiles, and although the Psalmist makes exception 
of God's people, yet the exceptions are made by grace, and do 
but confirm the rule. So in Job xv. 14, " "What is man that 
he should be clean ? and he which is born of a woman, that he 
should be righteous." So Jer. xvii. 9, " The heart is deceitful 
above all things, and desperately wicked ; who can know it ? " 

An absolute identity of result in all men in fact implies the 
existence of a common cause of that result. If all men, always 
from earliest infancy to extremest old age, everywhere, under 
all diversities of race, education, and outward circumstances, in 
short, of everything in which they can differ, are sinful, then 
must the root of sin be, not in any one thing, nor in all things 
in which they differ, but in the thing or things which they 
have in common. But the sole things which men have in 
common, are their human nature, and their common original 
inborn moral condition. In one of these must lie the spring 
of universal sinfulness ; but it cannot lie in their nature as 
such ; for nature as such is the work of God, and cannot there- 
fore be sinful. Sin is the perversion of nature, the uucreating, 
as it were, of what God has created, a marring of His work. It 
must lie then in man's moral condition, as fallen and inheriting 
original sin. The great acknowledged facts in the case then are 
logically and necessarily connected with the theory of original 
sin which is maintained in the Confession. 

VII. The results or revelations of the workings of this orig- 
inal sin are, first, privative or negative, and second, positive, 
seventh Thesis. 1: Privative or negative showing itself in what we 
The results. h&ve lost ; we are without fear, without trust, " sine 
metu, sine fiducia." ii : Positive in what we have, " cum concu- 
piscentia, with concupiscence." 

i : 1. Privatively or negatively original sin shows itself, first 



SEVENTH THESIS. THE RESULTS. 387 

in this, that all human beings are born without the fear of God. 
Conf. "Sine metu Dei;" " Keine wahre Gottesfurcht haben." 
This means not only that an infant does not and cannot con- 
sciously fear God, but that there is in it a lack of anything 
which can potentially, or through any process of self-develop- 
ment or of natural education, exercise such a fear of God as He 
demands of the creature. We can by nature have a false fear, 
or an instinctive fear of God, but not a true fear, hence the 
emphasis of the German of the Confession, " Keine wahre" 
" no true fear." 

2. A second element of the privative result is, that they are 
born without trust in God, without faith in Him or love for Him. 
In the fear of God there is a just contemplation of His natural 
attributes, and that reverential, awe which inspires the spirit of 
obedience. In trust, faith, and love, there is a contemplation 
of His moral attributes, drawing the heart to Him. Neither 
our just fears, nor our just hopes toward God, are left un- 
touched by original sin. Conf., "Sine fiducia erga Deum ; " 
" Keinen wahrenGlaubenanGott, keine wahre Gottesliebe." 

There is innate in a child, before conscious exercise, a poten- 
tial, true trust, faith, and love, toward its mother, and that trust 
unfolds itself out of the potential into the actual. Before a 
child's first act of love toward its mother, there must be a 
power of loving, and that power of loving must exercise itself. 
There must be something in a child that can love before it does 
love, and that something is born with the child. In other 
words, a child may be said, with reference to this innate power, 
to be born with trust toward its mother. But it lacks in its 
nature that which would enable it to exercise a true trust in 
God, such as He demands. Man may by nature have a false 
trust in God, or an intellectual and natural trust, but not that 
higher and true trust which is in perfect keeping with God's 
nature and His holy law. In order to this, grace must impart 
something with which we are not born. 

The Roman Catholic theologians, in their confutation of the 
Augsburg Confession, say that the statement in this article in 
regard to original sin is to be utterly rejected, since it is mani- 
fest to every Christian that to be without the fear of God, and 



388 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

without trust toward God, is rather the actual fault of the 
adult than the fault of a new-born infant, which is destitute 
of the use of reason, as the Lord says to Moses, Deut. i. 39, 
" Your children, which in that day had no knowledge between 
good and evil." Melanchthon , in the Apology, replied by 
referring to the German form of the Confession, which brings 
out more clearly than does the Latin, that it is not the act, 
but the power of fearing God and trusting in Him, which is 
referred to, or as Melanchthon expresses it, not tire* act only, 
but the gift and power of doing these things. The Apology 
is the best commentary on the disputed parts of the Augsburg 
Confession, as well as an able defence of them. 

ii. The positive result is that they are born with concupis- 
cence, that is, that from their birth they are all full of evil de- 
sire and evil propensity. The Confession says, " Et cum concu- 
piscentia." German: "Dass sie alle von Mutterleibe an voller 
boser Lust und Neigung sind." The term concupiscence is a New 
Test, term, Rom. vii. 7, 8, " I had not known lust (margin, ' or 
concupiscence')" etc., " wrought in me all manner of concupis- 
cence.^ So Col. iii. 5, " Mortify therefore your members which 
are upon the earth ; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affec- 
tion, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry." 
1. Thess. iv. 5, " IsTot in the lust of concupiscence." The Greek 
word which it translates, and which is used in a number of 
places where it is not translated concupiscence, has the general 
meaning of earnest and intense .desire. Thus our Saviour, 
Luke xxii. 15, says, " With desire (epithumia) I have desired 
(epithumeo) to eat this passover with you before I suffer." 
St. Paul says, (Phil. i. 23,) " Having a desire (epithumia) to de- 
part ; " 1 Thess. ii. 17, " Endeavoured with great desire." These 
are the only cases, three out of thirty-seven, in which the word 
epithumia is used without implying something inordinate 
and sinful. The natural epithumia of an unsanctified nature 
is always inordinate, carnal, sensual, impure: it is desire, lust, 
concupiscence. The word is also applied by metonymy to ob- 
jects which kindle such desires. Every epithumia except that 
of our Lord, and of the natures conformed to His nature, is 
represented as sinful. In the passage in Romans vii. 7, 8, con- 



SEVENTH THESIS. THE RESULTS. 389 

eupiscence is represented as the motive power in covetousness. 
In Col. iii. 5, it is distinguished from inordinate affection and 
covetousness, to which it is related as the root to the tree, or as 
the trunk to the branches. In 1 Thess. iv. 5, the " lust of con- 
cupiscence" is mentioned, that is, the lust or positive desire gen- 
erated by the evil propensity inherent in our own nature ; that 
is, the actual evil desire by the original evil desire, or concupis- 
cence ; sin by sin ; sin the offspring by sin the parent, the actual 
sin of our character being related to the original sin of our nature, 
as child to mother. The Pelagianizing Romanist says, Lust, or 
concupiscence, brings forth sin, therefore it cannot be sin, be- 
cause the mother cannot be the child. We reply, Concupis- 
cence brings forth sin, therefore it must be sin, because child and 
mother must have the same nature. The grand sophism of 
Pelagianism is the assumption that sin is confined to acts, that 
guilty acts can be the product of innocent condition, that the 
effect can be sinful, yet the cause free from sin — that the un- 
clean can be brought forth from the clean. 

The word concupiscence, therefore, as the representative of 
epithumia in its evil sense, very properly designates that moral 
condition which is antecedent to positive and conscious moral 
acts. It is the first phenomenon of personality in morals, and 
no better practical definition can be given of it, than the simple 
one of our Confession. It is " evil desire" and "evil propen- 
sity," " bose Lust und Neigung." 

The grand idea here lies in this, that sin is in us potentially 
before it comes to the act ; that the moral nature of the infant is 
born with it, and does not originate in, nor date its origin from, 
any conscious movement of the infant's will, any purpose of 
its heart, any act of its hands ; but that, on the contrary, the 
general character of that movement, purpose, and act of will, 
heart, and hand, apart from Divine grace, is inevitably con- 
ditioned as actually sinful, and that this actual sinfulness is 
merely on the one side the result and token of a defect, and on 
the other the positive exhibition of an evil tendency already 
in being, from the time of the origin of the human nature of 
the child. Hence, in a new sense, this sin may be called orig- 
inal. It is that in which all other sins in some sense take their 



390 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

origin. It throws its life into them ; without it they might 
not he ; it is not only original, it is also the originating sin, or 
that sin which gives the original to all others. 

Negatively, then, original sin is the lack of original right- 
eousness, that is, of the righteousness which man originally 
had as God's creature, bearing His image, and is the perpet- 
uation morally of original unrighteousness, that is, of the non- 
righteousness which fallen man, as fallen, originally had. 
Positively, original sin is evil desire and propensity, first exist- 
ing potentially and seminally, so to speak, the power of all 
sinful results, and the seed of all sinful growths ; and then re- 
vealing itself invariably and necessarily in conscious and actual 
sin, if not checked by the Spirit of God. 

iii. As we have by nature no true fear of God, no true love 
of God, no true faith in God, so neither can we get them by 
nature. Conf., " Keinen von Natur haben konnen." Original 
sin is not only retrospective, looking back to the origin of our 
race, but it is prospective, covering the future as it covers the 
past, a pall upon the face of the nations. In the sphere of 
nature it renders our condition utterly hopeless. A man 
may by nature have a weak body, a feeble constitution, 
an imperfection of speech, but in nature he may find relief 
for them all. Strength may come by natural exercise, flu- 
ency by repeated efforts, but there is no power in man, in 
his reason or in his will, none in education, none in the 
whole store of the visible, or intellectual, or moral world, which 
can repair this fatal defect, and render him God's reverent, 
loving, and trusting child. There is no surf-beaten shore on 
which man may go forth and train himself amid its thunders 
and its whispers, to speak in true faith and love into the ear 
of God words which may remove His righteous disapproval 
of our sinful and sinning nature. In other words, in the sphere 
of nature, original sin leaves us in utter and hopeless ruin. 
Without faith it is impossible to please God ; without holiness 
no man shall see the Lord ; and by nature we are destitute of 
faith and holiness potentially. In our conscious, moral life 
there can be no development of them actually. We neither 
have, nor can have them, unless something not of us, nor of 



ON THE NAMES DESIGNATING ORIGINAL SIN 391 

nature, supervenes. " The natural man receiveth not the things 
of the Spirit of God ; for they are foolishness unto Him : 
neither can he know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
cerned." 1 Cor. ii. 14. 

VIII. The essence of original sin involves that this disease or 
vice of origin is truly sin. Conf. Latin: " Quod- Eio . wh Thesi8 
que hie morbus seu vitium originis vere sit pecca- original sin is 
turn." German : " Dass auch dieselbige angeborene 
Seuche und Erbsunde wahrhaftiglich Siinde sei." 

The application of a particular name to a thing raises the 
question, first, whether that name has more than 0n the names 
one sense, and secondly, if it have, in what sense b >' whicb ori s^- 

, . , . , . -, -, nal sia is desig- 

lt is applied m the particular case under con- nated m the con- 
sideration. Is the name to be taken literally or fession - 
figuratively ? 

The following names are applied to original sin in the Augs- 
burg Confession : In the Latin, " vitium, morbus, jyeccatum" ; in 
the German, " Seuche " and "Sunde." As these names have been 
most carefully employed, we must weigh them to realize their 
full force, and to reach with precision the doctrine which they 
are designed to convey. 

These terms may be classified thus : 

1. The terms that are used metaphorically, or by adapta- 
tion. 2. The terms used literally. To the first of these belong 
" vitium," and " morbus," and " Seuche" ; to the second, " pec- 
catum" and " S uncle." 

I. Morbus. The word " morbus" is nowhere used in the 
Yulgate. The word used where we might anticipate " morbus" 
is usually "languor," and sometimes " segritudo. " Morbus is 
defined by lexicographers as a " sickness, disease, evil affec- 
tion of body contrary to nature." Original Sin as " morbus " 
is, in general, sickness in spirit, analogous to disease in body. 
The metaphorical transfer is very easy and obvious. The 
Confession does not at all mean that original sin is literally a 
sickness or morbus. The Apology,* with just severity, char- 
acterizes the scholastic absurdities : " Of the fomenting incli- 
nation (fomes) — they maintain that it is a quality of body, 

* 79, 7. 



392 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

and inquire whether it came by contagion of the apple, or from 
the breath of the serpent? and whether medicines make it 
worse ? " 

II. Vitium. The word vitium is used in the Vulgate five 
times. It has the sense, "fault" of a bodily kind, even in 
animals ; " moral fault, vice," as in Job xx. 11 : " Sin of his 
youth." Vulgate, "vices of his youth." Gal. v. 24: "The 
flesh with the affections (margin ' or passions ') and lusts." 
Rheims' transl. of Vulg., " vices and concupiscences." With the 
Vulgate agrees in general the classic usage of the word vitium. 

III. The distinction between morbus and vitium. The 
use of these two words in the Confession is not tautological, 
but in the highest degree delicate and discriminating. They 
are not synonyms, but are used not only to convey a different 
idea, but with a certain degree of antithesis. Cicero, in the 
Tusculan Questions, Book 4, says, " Morbus is the corruption 
of the whole body, such as is fever for example ; vitium is 
when the parts of the body are at variance among themselves, 
from which results pravity of the members, distortion, deform- 
ity." So Nonius says, " Vitium is an abiding impediment 
of the body, such as blindness, lameness, unsoundness." 

Morbus in German would be "Krankheit." Vitium would 
be " Fehler." The one term may be said to be derived from 
medicine, the other from surgery. 

Morbus, in a theological sense, is moral sickness, disease, or 
plague ; vitium is moral vice, fault, or defect, maiming, muti- 
lation, or distortion. 

IV. There is a correspondence therefore between the two 
names vitium and morbus, and the two parts of the definition 
of original sin : a. Vitium corresponds with the negative 
part of the definition. Original sin as a defect of original 
righteousness, the mutilation of the moral man, the lack of 
something essential to his moral perfection, is vitium. b. Mor- 
bus corresponds with the positive part of the definition. Orig- 
inal sin as the presence of a corrupting element infecting the 
moral man, the indwelling of a pervading and positive evil 
added to his constitution, is morbus. 

In a word, the vitium takes away the good, the morbus 



ON THE NAMES DESIGNATING ORIGINAL SIN. 393 

brings in the bad. The vitium is the lack of the true fear 
and trust, the morbus is the concupiscence. 

V. Seuche. The word Seuche does not translate either 
morbus or vitium. Its Latin equivalent would be " lues," and 
it is one of the most generic words in German to express sick- 
ness. Its proper English equivalent is plague, and it is related 
to pestilence and to disease as genus is related to species. 
Luther uses the word " Seuche" thirteen times in the New 
Testament. Once he translates by it the word noseema, in 
John v. 4, the only place at which it occurs. In the twelve 
other cases he uses it to translate " nosos," which is the syn- 
onym of " noseema," and is translated in the authorized 
version by the word " sickness" five times, " disease" six times, 
" infirmity" once. In the New Testament the word " nosos " 
is used literally for bodily disease, except, perhaps, in Matt, 
viii. 17, " He bare our sicknesses," where it has been taken, 
though without necessity, metaphorically for pain, sorrow, 
evil of a spiritual kind. In the Old Testament, Luther uses 
" Seuche," first, to translate " Madveh," in the only two places in 
which that word occurs, Deut. vii. 15, and xxviii. 60, where it 
means literally" disease," and in the first of which the Septua- 
gint renders it " nosos." Secondly, Luther uses it to translate 
" Quehtev," Psalm cli. 6. Authorized Version, " the destruction 
which wasteth at noon-day," but Coverdale, Cranmer, and the 
Liturgy Version of the Church of England, following Luther, 
translate it " sickness," and the Genevan, and, among recent 
translators, Noyes, "plague," and Ainsworth, "stinging 
plague." 

The metaphorical idea of sickness is found in the Old Testa- 
ment, as Hosea, v. 13, " Ephraim saw his sickness," i. e. his polit- 
ical weakness and wretchedness. Psalm ciii. 3, " Who healeth 
all thy diseases," seems to be used metaphorically for spiritual 
disorders in accordance with the parallelism of the first part, 
" Who forgiveth all thine iniquities." So Psalm xli. 4, 
" Heal my soul ; for I have sinned against thee." There sin is 
represented as the disease of the soul, God as a physician, 
grace as healing. The word " holiness" is only another way 
of pronouncing the word " wholeness." So Isa. vi. 10, " And 



394 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

convert and be healed," that is, be healed of sin, which is the 
disease of the soul. The Chaldee Paraphrase and the Syriac 
render: " and be forgiven." 

The metaphorical transfer of the idea of disease and fault 
to express moral condition is so obvious, that we find it in all 
cultivated languages. Cicero says, " As in the body there is 
disease, sickness, and fault, so is there in the soul." 
We have this triple parallel therefore : 

body, health, sickness, 

mind, sanity, insanity, 

spirit, holiness, sin. 

The analogies between morbus, disease and sin are very many. 
Analogies be- *-• Morbus is in conflict with the original per- 
tween Morbus and fection of body with which man was created, 
the original Tightness or wholeness of body. 

2. Morbus is a potency before it is revealed as a fact. 

3. Morbus in its tendency is toward death. The slightest 
morbus developed to the last degree would destroy the body. 
There is no morbus so slight that it has not brought death. 
Strike out two letters, and morbus, " disease," becomes mors, 
"death." 

4 Morbus is common to the whole race. Cicero, in the Tus- 
culan Questions, 325, translates from Euripides this sentence, 
" Mortalis nemo est quern non attingit dolor morbusque," 
" There is not one of our race untouched by pain and disease." 

5. Morbus is the spring of pain, grief, and misery to the 
body. 

6. Morbus rests on an inborn tendency of the body. It 
could not touch the body of a sinless being without his per- 
mission. Our Lord Jesus Christ could only endure it by the 
act of His own will. 

7. Morbus is primarily in the world, not because we sinned, 
but because Adam sinned ; he is the spring of original morbus, 
as he is of original peccatum. 

8. Morbus depraves and corrupts the substance of the body, 
but is not itself substance ; it is not a creature of God, but a 
defect in, and vitiation of, that which He created. The body 
is His work, morbus the result of sin. 



ANALOGIES BETWEEN MORBUS AND SIN. 395 

9. Morbus is negatively the antithesis to health, the absence 
of health ; and secondly, in consequence of that lack, that which 
was originally useful and pleasant becomes morbid and works 
misery. Take, for example, a healthy tooth ; everything in it 
is meant for use, and is promotive of comfort. Take away its 
healthy state, and although no new thing is created, there is 
misery and uselessness in place of its former healthy condition ; 
there is positive pain there. 

10. Morbus is real morbus, verb morbus, before it comes to 
symptom. A man is sick before he shows himself sick, and he 
shows himself sick because he is sick. He may be sick for a 
time, and neither he nor others be aware of it. The symptom 
is not the morbus, nor the cause of it, but the result, the effect, 
the revelation of the morbus. The fever is before the fever- 
heat ; the small-pox before the pustule ; the obstruction of the 
pores before the cough ; there is morbus originis in the body 
before there is morbus manifestus in it. 

11. Morbus may be wholly independent of any act of ours. 
We may have morbus because our neighbor has it. A child 
may have it because the father has it, or the father may con- 
tract it from the child. One has typhoid-fever or small-pox, 
and another takes it from him. There is endemic morbus, epi- 
demic morbus, contagious morbus, infectious morbus. With 
the mystery of disease staring us in the face in the physical 
world, it becomes us to be humble and reverent in regard to 
God's teachings in reference to the mystery of His permission 
of hereditary sin in the moral world. 

12. Morbus, not only as a generic tendency, but in specific 
shape, may be hereditary. There is an Erb-seuche as well as 
an Erbsiinde. When the skeptic shall thoroughly sound the 
mystery of that arrangement of Providence by which the child 
of consumptive parents may be born not only with a tendency 
to consumption, but with actual consumption, then may he 
with more show of reason ask us to sound for him the fathom- 
less depths of the Divine permission of hereditary sin in our 
w^orld. 

13. Morbus in some forms defies all the curative powers of 
nature and of art. Men will be so sick as to die, despite all 



396 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

original energies of the constitution, all medicines, and all 
physicians. 

14. Whatever be the philosophy of morbus, the great facts 
are indisputable. Men may wrangle as to how and why it is, 
but they cannot deny that it is. They may believe that they 
relieve difficulties by abandoning the old phraseology and coin- 
ing new ; but all the resources of language leave the facts and 
the difficulties substantially where they were. The medical 
theorists have new names, new theories, new medicines, but 
men have continued to die, and will continue to die. The theo- 
logical charlatan may try a new nomenclature, and assail with 
sugar- and rose-water what the old doctors treated with the 
most potent medicines, but sin will reveal itself in the world 
with the old signs of virulence, and, trifled with, will work 
death. 

15. He who has false views of morbus, is not likely to obtain 
a thorough cure of it. His determination to call a plague- 
boil a pimple, will not make it a pimple ; tubercular consump- 
tion is not a trifling cough, nor a cancer a corn, because men 
may think them such. We can neither think facts out of 
being, nor into being. 

16. Morbus is ordinarily relieved by means. Sickness can- 
not heal itself, nor is it ordinarily healed by miracle. 

17. The wrong remedy will not cure morbus, however sin- 
cere the misguided physician may be in recommending it, and 
the deluded patient in using it. It is the dream of a Ration- 
alism close upon Deism, that error is practically as good as 
truth, if a man heartily believes it to be the truth ; that you can 
substitute arsenic for salt with safety, if you believe it to be 
salt. The kingdom of nature and of grace are both under law. 
Things will be clone after God's ordinance, or they will not be 
done at all. 

Analogies be- The analogies between Yitium and Original 
tween vitium and Sin are also many and obvious. 

1. Yitium is universal. Every body has some 
defect. Thrasea (Pliny's Epistles 8, 22,) was wont to say, 
"Qui vitia doit, homines odit," "Who hates faults, hates all 
mankind." 



ANALOGIES BETWEEN VITITJM AND SIN. 397 

2. Vitium in some of its forms is, as Nonius says, " perpetua 
et insanabilis atque irrevocabilis causa," " a cause which 
works always, beyond healing and beyond revoke." 

3, and last. Vitium is privative, yet the privation is pro- 
ductive of positive misery. Blindness is not a thing, bat the 
want of a thing. When the first blindness took place, there 
was no creation of blindness, but the mere privation of that 
light which was given in the first creation : The absence of an 
arm is not a thing, but the defect of a thing ; God did not create 
blindness or armlessness, nor does a man become a creator by 
making himself or his child armless or sightless. These condi- 
tions are in themselves but negations, yet what positive ill results 
from these negations. The ignorance of the blind, the helpless- 
ness of the maimed, result from these privative vitia. Though 
blindness be, per se, not something, but nothing, though the 
want of an arm be nothing, the deep grief is that where some- 
thing should be there is nothing. The sophistry, therefore, that 
mere negation, mere defect, is inoperative, is exposed even by 
nature, for lack of operation is often the greatest of ills, and to 
say that because original sin is not substance or essence there 
can be no result from it, is in the last degree shallow and false. 
This point has been felicitously stated by Melanchthon : " It is 
useful to mark clearly the difference between the things created 
b}^ God, and sin, which is the disturbance or confusion of the 
divine order : hence it is rightly said, Sin is a defect or pri- 
vation. . . And here lies the answer to the sophistical question, 
Inasmuch as a defect is nothing, that is, is not a positive thing, 
how can God be angry at nothing? The answer is, there is 
a broad distinction between nothing 'privative and nothing negative. 
For nothing taken in the privative sense requires a subject, and 
is a certain destruction in that subject, on account of which 
that subject is rejected, as the ruins of an edifice are a destruc- 
tion or scattering of parts in the mass. Thus Original Sin is 
a defilement and confusion of the parts of man, and God hates 
it, and on account of it is angered at the subject. In disease 
nothing has the sense of privation, inasmuch as the subject re- 
mains, and disease is a certain disturbance in the subject. The 
wounded man looks upon his wound sorrowfully, and knows 



398 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

that the wound is not nothing negatively, but that the parts are 
torn. Thus Paul grieved when he saw the crimes of Nero, 
for he knew that they were not nothing negatively, but the 
awful ruins of the work of God." * 

The Thesis on the introductory terms to which we have been 
dwelling, asserts that this disease or fault of origin, this inborn 
plague and hereditary sin is truly and really sin. The vere 
and wahrhaftiglich are opposed : 

1. To the false, incorrect, or fictitious ; 

2. To the verbal. 

To the 1st they are opposed, as the true ; to the 2d, as the 
real. When we affirm that original sin is truly and really 
sin, we affirm the doctrine of the Church : 

1. Against those who deny that human nature is in any 
respect different from the condition in which it was at its 
origin ; who deny that original sin exists. 

2. Over against those who concede that there is a real defect 
in human nature since the Fall, but who deny that this defect 
is sin. 

3. Over against those who concede that original sin is, in 
some sense, sin, but who, either in terms, or virtually, deny 
that it is truly and really sin. Over against these is affirmed : 

1. The true and real existence of original sin. 

2. The true and real sinfulness of its character. 

The doctrine is asserted against its deniers, and defined 
against its corrupters. 

Of original sin we say : 

1. It is ; 2. It is sin ; 3. It is truly and really sin. 

In these w^orcls lies a grand distinctive feature of the doctrine 
of the Church, as opposed to the Pelagians or Pelagianizing 
tendencies of a large part of the Roman communion, and of 
Zwingli, as well as by anticipation of more recent heresies. 
In these words is the very heart of just views of original sin : 

We argue that original sin is truly sin : 

1. Because it has the relations and connections of sin. 

*Loc. Theolog. ed. 1545. Opera. Witteburg. 1580. Fol. vol. i. 1G3. Chemnitii: 
Loc. Theol. 1G53. Fol. i. 128. Corp. Reformator. xxi, 646. This striking dis- 
tinction is not drawn in any of the earlier editions of the Loci. 



THE RELATIONS AND CONNECTIONS. 399 

2. It has the name and synonyms of sin. 

3. It has the essence of sin. 

4. It has the attributes of sin. 

5. It does the acts of sin. 

6. It incurs the penalties of sin. 

7. It needs the remedies of sin. 

8. Consequently, and finally, it is conformed to a true defini- 
tion of sin. 

1. We argue that original sin is truly sin because its 
relations and connections are those of sin. One i. The relations 
of our great old divines* adopting a distinction and connections - 
made by Bonaventura, says, " Sin is wrought in three ways : 

" When person corrupts nature, as was done by Adam and 
Eve." — Two persons corrupted their own nature, and all human 
nature with it. 

" When nature corrupts persons, as in the propagation of 
original sin." — The nature of the parents corrupts the child 
who is born of them. 

" When person corrupts person, as in actual sin." — The in- 
fluence of one person over another by example, by corrupting 
words, and other ways, leads man into acts of sin. 

" At the beginning, actual sin took the precedence, and 
original sin followed it ; now, original sin takes the precedence, 
and actual sin follows it." As original sin, however, is pre- 
supposed as the internal force which opens itself in actual sin, 
its relations are very direct, even with the^ forms of origin 
which can in any sense, though but ideally, be separated from 
its own. It is begotten of sin, and hence is of necessity of the 
nature of its parent, and therefore truly sin. It is the begetter 
of sin, and hence is of the nature of its child, and therefore 
truly sin, for in nothing can a thing be more truly this or that, 
than in its nature. It is the true child of true sin ; the true 
parent of true sin, and hence is itself true sin. Alike then in 
the relations and connections of its Genesis and of its Revela- 
tion, original sin is truly sin. 

2. Original sin, we argue further, is truly sin, because it has 
the name and synonyms of sin. It receives the names and syn- 

* Quenstedt, Theologia Dogmatico-Polemica, I Vol. col. 914. 



400 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

onyms of sin in the Word of God. Psalms li. 5, " In sin did 
my mother conceive me," where David speaks not of the sin 
of his mother, but of a sin pertaining to himself, and regards 
his moral condition, which he calls sin, as antecedent to his 

2. The name birth — and as beginning with the beginning of his 
and synonyms, being.* So the German of the Confession : " In Sun- 
den empfangen" Rom. v. 12, " By one man sin entered into the 
world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men for 
that all have sinned." Here the generic moral state of all of 
our race is considered as sin. " Sin dwelleth in me." " In me, 
that is in my flesh, dwelleth no good thing." " The law of sin 
which is in my members." " Let not sin reign in your mortal 
body." Psalm li. 5, "I was shapen in iniquity." John iii. 6, 
" That which is born of the flesh is fleshy In these passages 
original sin is called " sin," " iniquity," and the " flesh." 

In the phraseology of the early Christian writers, of the Re- 
formers, of the Confessions of all pure Churches, of the pro- 
foundest later theologians, as well as of private Christians, the 
names and synonyms of sin are confessedly applied to original 
sin. 

When men profess to believe in the reality of that which is 
called original sin, yet object to the term, they have failed to 
find or invent another term as expressive and less open to ob- 
jection. In the very act of opposing the doctrine that original 
sin is truly sin, they drift into the use of terms whose natural 
force involves that it is truly sin. If a general consciousness 
ever embodied itself in the unhesitating application of a term, 
then does the name of original sin prove that it is truly sin. 

3. It has the* essence of sin, which is deviation from the will of 

God. In physical, irrational, or non-moral nature, as such, there 

can be no deviation from the will of God. To deviate from 

His will, personal will is necessary. Hence all de- 

3. The essence. ' * J . 

viation from God's will is sin, and all sin is devia- 
tion from His will. When matter is said to be perverted from its 
right use by the corrupt will, it is still true that, as matter, it 
obeys the law under which God has placed it. Fire is not 

* The Chaldee paraphrase renders Yahham by a yet more radical term : im- 
praegnat a est. 



ESSENCE. 401 

deviating from the will of God in burning, though it surrounds 
and consumes the body of Huss. All the deviation from God's 
will, and all the sin, is in the will of devils and men, which has 
brought the martyr to the stake. Whatever is not in accordance 
with His will, has in it the essence of sin. But not only conscious 
sins, but that condition of nature also in which they originate, 
is the result, not of God's will, but of the abuse of the will of the 
creature. Whatever exists of which God cannot be said to be 
the author, is sinful. But God is not the author either of the 
fall of Satan, the temptation and lapse of Adam, the corrup- 
tion of his nature, or of the consequent defect of righteousness, 
and the evil desire inherited in human nature. Hence all of 
these have in them the essence of sin. 

We ask, is the moral condition in which man is born in 
conformity with the will of God, or in conflict with it ? If it 
be in conformity with it, it is not depravity — it is a good thing. 
If it is a deviation from it, it is not depravity merely, but 
truly sin. There is no logical consistency at any point between 
the extremest Pelagianism and the strictest adhesion to the 
faith of the Church on this point. 

]N"ot only, however, is original sin essentially sin, but it is 
such preeminently. It might be questioned whether a seed is 
essentially vegetable, because in it, undeveloped, none of the 
obvious distinctive characteristics of vegetation meet the eye ; 
so that a grain of mustard-seed might be mistaken for a grain 
of sand, and a skilful imitation of an acorn actually be 
regarded as an acorn. But the answer could be truly made 
that not only is the seed vegetable in its essence, but preem- 
inently so, as it is the necessary presupposition to all other veg- 
etable existence ; enfolds in it all vegetable capacity ; determines 
all vegetable character. The nature of its potencies makes the 
vegetable world. 

And thus in the infant the dim traces of moral character 
can be easily overlooked. Sceptical sciolism may maintain 
that there is nothing discernible in an infant which marks it, 
any more than a kitten or a lamb, as a personal and moral agent ; 
nevertheless, it has a moral nature, which is to reveal itself in 
moral character. That moral nature is marked by a defect and 

26 



402 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

an evil propension which will affect the whole of its spiritual 
life, and that defect and propension have in them the essential 
element of sin ; they are not in conformity with the will of 
God. 

This inborn something, which is not in conformity with the 
will of God, is related to temptation, incitement, and the 
power of example, as the seed is related to the soil, the dew 
and the sunshine which evolve it into germ, tree, flower, and 
fruit. It may he affirmed of the kingdom of darkness, which 
has its parallels so often in the kingdom of God, that its 
course also is, first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn 
in. the ear. 

The question here, to give it shape from our figure, is not, 
" Is a seed truly a tree?" but, " Is it truly vegetable ? " " Has 
it really the same nature as the tree? " And the reply is, It 
has. Nay, rather the tree is but a phenomenon of the seed ; 
it is itself the parent seed developed, and its own perfect 
potency ends in a seed. If the first seed that ever ripened was 
a phenomenon of the first tree, this was because the first tree 
was a direct creation, not a mediate growth ; but under the law 
of mediate growth, the seed is the proper presupposition of 
the tree — the condition of its nature. On the vegetable seed 
depends the vegetable nature. If you may call a seed yet un- 
grown truly vegetable, then you may call the seminal sin yet 
ungrown truly sin. Original sin, therefore, has not only the 
essence of sin, but it has that essence by preeminence. Nay, 
it may be said to be that essence, and relatively to it all 
other sins may be said to be in some sense phenomenal, deriva- 
tive, and dependent. There is an important sense, therefore, 
in which even beyond the sins of act, original sin may be 
affirmed to be truly sin. It is not a sin, it is sin. 

4. We argue that original sin is truly sin because it has the 

ATTRIBUTES of sin. 

Is sin evil ? so is original sin. " God saw that every 
4. The attri- imagination of the thoughts of man's heart was 

butesofsin. on iy ev n continually." Gen. vi. 5. 

Is sin unclean? so is original sin. " Who can bring a 

clean thing out of an unclean f not one." Job xiv. 4. " What 



THE ACTS OF SIN. 403 

is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a 
woman, that he should be righteous ? " Job xv. 14. 

Is sin abominable and loathsome ? so is original sin. 
u The heavens are not clean in His (God's) sight. How much 
more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity 
like water." Job xv. 15, 16. 

Is sin unrighteous ? so is original sin. " "What is he which 
is born of a woman, that he should be righteous ? " Job xv. 14. 

Is sin impure ? so is original sin. " The stars are not pure 
in His (God's) sight, how much less man, that is a worm." 
Job xxv. 4. Here the contrast is between the highest purity 
imaged in the stars, and the deepest corruption embodied in 
man, who, not in physical characteristics, nor in intellect, but in 
moral nature, is a worm before the judgment of God — " man," 
paraphrases the Targum, " in life a reptile, in death a worm." 

5. We argue that original sin is truly sin, because it does 
the acts of sin. 

" When we were in the flesh" (" that which is born of the 
flesh is flesh"), " the motions of sin which were by 5 Theacts of 
the law, did ivork in our members to bring forth sin. 
fruit unto death." Eom. vii. 5. " So then with the mind I 
myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh, the law of 
sin." Rom. vii. 25. " The flesh lusteth against the spirit." Gal. 
v. 17. " .Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are 
these : Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idol- 
atry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, 
seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, 
and such like." Gal. v. 19-21. The works of the flesh are not 
works done in the flesh, that is in the body, but works wrought 
by the flesh, that is by the corrupt nature characteristic of all 
that are born of the flesh. " The carnal mind is enmity against 
God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can 
be." Rom. viii. 7. " If I do that I would not, it is no more I 
that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." Rom. vii. 20. u I see 
another law in my members, warring against the law of 
my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin 
which is in my members." Rom. vii. 23. " The spirit that 
dwelleth in us lusteth to envy." " Let not sin reign in your 



404 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." 
Rom. vi. 12. 

6. We argue that original sin is truly sin because it incurs 
the penalties of sin. 

" How then can man be justified with God ? or how can he 
be clean that is born of a woman? " " The stars are not pure in 
His sight ; how much less man, that is a worm ? " Job xxv. 4, 5, 
6. " "When we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which 
c The penalties were ^Y tne l aw > did work in our members to 
of Bin. bring forth fruit unto death." Rom. vii. 5. " 0, 

wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the 
body of this death f " Rom. vii. 24. " God . . condemned sin in 
the flesh." Rom. viii. 3. " To be carnally minded is death." 
Rom. viii. 6. " By one man sin entered into the world, and 
death by sin ; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have 
sinned." Rom. v. 12. " Death reigned from Adam to Moses, 
even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of 
Adam's transgression." Rom. v. 14. " Through the offence 
of one, many (oi polloi, ' the many,' that is ' mankind') be 
dead." Rom. v. 15. " The judgment was by one to condemna- 
tion." Rom. v. 16. " By one man's offence death reigned by 
one." Rom. v. 17. " Judgment came upon all men to condem- 
nation." Rom. v. 18. "They that are in the flesh cannot 
please God." Rom. viii. 8. " We all were by nature the 
children of wrath, even as others." Eph. ii. 3. 

In these passages original sin comes before us in three 
aspects as to penalty : 

1. As punished by the penalty which comes upon the sins 
of act, which original sin originates. The stroke which is 
aimed at them, of necessity, strikes it also. 

2. As punished together with the sin of act. Each is aimed 
at, and each is smitten simultaneously. 

3. As subject to punishment in itself antecedent to and sep- 
arate from all sin in act. It bears the penalty w T hich comes by 
the sin of act ; it bears the penalty which it meets in con- 
junction with the sin of act, and it is subject to punishment in 
itself considered. The range of penalty in which it is involved, 
is, in one respect, larger than that of actual sin ; for while, in 



THE REMEDY. 405 

no case, can the penalty fall on actual sin without involving 
original sin, there is one case, the third, in which it could fall 
upon original sin, where there was as yet no sin of act. 

If penalty then can mark its character, original sin is truly 
sin. 

7. We argue that original sin is truly sin, because it needs 
the remedy of sin. 

" Create in me a clean heart, God ! " Psalm li. 12. " Who 
shall deliver me from the body of this death ? I 
thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord." 7 - Th ™ ed y- 
Rom. vii. 24. 

This remedy is needed. 1, As to its essence; 2, as to its 
author; and 3, as to its means. " Putting off the body of the 
sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ." Col. ii. 11. 
" Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. " 
" Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God." " That which is born of the 
flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." 
John iii. 3, 5,6. " Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself 
for it ; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing 
of water by the word." Eph. v. 25, 26. 

1. The texts we have cited show who need the remedy of sin ; 
to wit, all human beings. " Except a man" that is, a human 
being — every human being, old or young. Furthermore, all 
that is born of the flesh, to wit, every human being, old or 
young. Furthermore, in regard to Eph. v. 25, " Christ loved 
the Church," etc., it maybe said : Children are either a part of 
the Church, or they are not. If they are not of the Church, 
they are not loved approvingly, and have no interest in Christ's 
work, nor application of it. But this no one will maintain. 
Then they are in the Church ; but if in the Church they are, 
according to St. Paul, in common with others, sanctified, and 
of course regenerate, washed with water, and reached by the 
word. But as the word cannot reach an infant didactically, it 
must reach it eacramentally. Infants then need, and receive 
the remedy of sin, and as they have original sin only, it must 
need the remedy of sin. 

2. These passages show that, as to the essence of the remedy 



406 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of sin, it is needed by original sin ; to wit : The putting off the 
body of the sins of the flesh ; the being born again ; the being 
sanctified and cleansed. 

3. These passages show that original sin needs the remedy 
of sin as to its author — He who acquires it, Christ; He who 
applies it, — the Holy Spirit ; in general, God. 

4. These passages show that original sin needs the remedy 
of sin as to its means. 

a. The circumcision of Christ, i. e. Christian circumcision ; to 
wit, that wdiich in the Christian system answers to, and fulfils 
what was shadowed by circumcision under the Jewish system, 
to wit, Holy Baptism, which is the washing of water con- 
joined with the Word and the Holy Ghost, in the absence of 
any one of which three elements there is no baptism. 

b. The Word of God: didactically, that is, by preaching, 
teaching, reading, meditation ; and the same word set forth 
and sealed by the sacraments. Without these things, to wit, 
Baptism and the Word, the body of the sins of the flesh cannot 
be put off ; but the body of the sins involves original sin. 

8. We argue, finally, that original sin is truly sin, because it 
is conformed to a true, definition of sin. When the inspired 
s The deiini- writers call the moral taint of our nature sin, they 
tion - give evidence in this, that as they define the term, 

it is applicable to that taint. Their idea of sin is of something 
which man has ; something which dwells in him ; something 
which is separate in ideal from his consciousness not only of 
his own essence, but from the consciousness of his truer nature, 
his more real self. 

This sin is something inborn, which is first to be pardoned, 
then controlled, and finally annihilated by a new birth, by the 
grace of God, by the work of the Holy Spirit, by the entrance 
on the glory of heaven, by the mighty power by which a risen 
Saviour is to raise these vile bodies and make them like His 
own body. These ideas underlie or rise upon every IsTew Tes- 
tament doctrine, duty, and hope. 

Rationalism has made it a reproach that the doctrine of 
original sin lies at the foundation of the evangelical system. 
We accept the reproach as in fact a concession that "the 



THE DEFINITION. 407 

evangelical system grounds itself, where alone a just system in 
regard to human restoration can be grounded ; for the first 
question, when disease is to be cured, is, "What is that dis- 
ease ? Is it so trifling as to need no physician ? Can a man 
heal it himself? Will it heal itself simply by the general 
energy of the system? or is it radical true disease, mortal in its 
tendency ? Does it require for its treatment a physician of the 
highest order, and remedies of the most exquisite adaptation 
and potency ? To all of these questions, with characteristic 
simplicity and practical force, our great Confession replies, 
when it says : " Original sin is truly sin." 

If it be asked, in what sense did our confessors use the word 
sin ? we reply, in what we have seen and shown to be its 
scriptural sense. Is it asked what did they, and what do we, 
regard as its scriptural sense ? we reply, the language of the 
Confession tells us most explicitly what they meant by true sin, 
and by that Confession in firm faith we abide. Yet it may 
not be useless to give, as a further illustration of its meaning, 
the definition of sin by Melanchthon, not only because of his 
relation to the Confession as its composer, but yet more because 
in his purest and happiest period, his definitions were as sound 
in their substance as they were discriminating and felicitous in 
their form. It may be doubted whether, before Melanchthon, 
in his Loci of 1535, any successful attempt had been made to 
define sin generically. The definitions of the fathers are either 
of specific sin, original or actual, or are too vague for the pur- 
poses of science. Pelagius tried to show, from some of Augus- 
tine's definitions of sin, that original sin is not really sin. What 
Augustine had said of sins of act, Pelagius applied to sin of 
nature. Melanchthon, in his Loci of the Second Era,* (1535- 
1541), says : " Sin in Holy Scripture does not merely mean 
something done (factum aliquod), but it signifies also a perpet- 
uated fault (perpetuum vitium), that is a corruption of nature 
conflicting with the law of God. Sin therefore, generically 
taken, is a perpetuated fault, or act, conflicting with the law of 
God. Sin is divided into original and actual." In the Loci 
of the Third Era (1543-1559), he says that in Scripture the 

* Corpus Reformatorum. xxi. 284, 378. In German : Do. xxii. 159. 



408 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

name " sin properly signifies any thing liable (ream), and con- 
demned by God, unless remission be made. This general 
description suits both original and actual sin. But as the 
definition only embraces what is relative, to wit, liability 
(reatus), the mind naturally seeks for that on account of which 
man is liable (reus)." Melanchthon then gives what may be con- 
sidered the standard definition of sin in the Lutheran Theology. 
It is almost verbally the definition which, first endorsed by 
Luther's hearty approbation, and by our divines in general, 
had been presented in opposition to Eck at the Colloquy at 
Worms in 1541, and runs thus : " Sin is either a defect (defec- 
tus, want, lack, failure,) or inclination, or act conflicting with 
the law of God, offending God, condemned by God, and mak- 
ing us liable (faciens nos reos) to eternal wrath and eternal 
punishments, had not remission been made." " In this 
definition," adds Melanchthon, in the Loci, " the c defect ' 
and c inclination' correspond with original sin ; the ' act ' em- 
braces all actual sin, internal and external."* In his Defini- 
tions, f he repeats the same idea a little more compactly. 
" Sin is whatever conflicts with the law of God — a defect, or 
inclination, or act conflicting with the law of God, and making 
the creature liable (ream) to eternal wrath, unless remission be 
made for the Mediator's sake." In the Examen Ordinandorum,;); 
the definition is in substance the same ; the most remarkable 
difference is in the closing words : " And fully meriting (com- 
merens) eternal wrath, unless remission were made for the 
Son, the Mediator's sake." 

If this definition of sin be a just one, then original sin is 
truly sin, for it is, as we have shown, a defect, and an inclina- 
tion in conflict with the law of God, offending God, and con- 
demned by God. 

IX. The natural consequence of this original sin is this, 
that it " condemns and brings now also eternal 

Ninth Thesis. ° 

The natural con- death ;" " damnans et afferens nunc quoque seter- 
se quence of orig- mortem" " uTid verdamme . . unter ewigen 

inal sin. ' ° 

Gottes Zorn." 
1. The best key to the meaning of this declaration is found 

* Corpus Reformator. xxi. 667. f Corp. Ref. xxi. 1077. % Corp. Ref.xxiii. 12. 



TRUTH OF THESIS— SCRIPTURE EVIDENCE. 409 

in the XVII. Swabach Articles of Luther. In the fourth of 
these articles of Luther, are these words : " Original sin is a 
true real sin, and not merely a fault or a blemish, but a sin of 
such kind as would condemn, and separate eternally Some histori . 
from God, all men who spring: from Adam, had not cal illustrations 

-r m . 7 -i • -it of this Thesis. 

Jesus Christ appeared as our substitute, and taken 
upon Himself this sin, together with all sins which result from 
it, and by His sufferings made satisfaction therefor, and thus 
utterly removed, and blotted them out in Himself, as in Ps. li., 
and Rom. v. 5. is clearly written of this sin." 

2. The fourth Article of the Swabach series is evidently 
based upon the fourth of the Articles prepared at the Marburg 
Colloquy. That Article says : In the fourth place, we believe 
that original sin is inborn, and inherited by us from Adam, 
and had not Jesus Christ come to our aid by his death and life, 
we must have died therein eternally, and could not have come 
to God's kingdom and blessedness.* 

3. In Melanchthon's edition of the Confession in German, 
published in 1533, the part of the Second Article now under 
consideration, reads thus : " This inborn and original sin is 
truly sin, and condemns under God's eternal wrath all who 
are not born again through Baptism and faith in Christ, 
through the Gospel and Holy Spirit, "f 

4. In Melanchthon's Latin edition of the varied Confession 
of 1540 and 1542, occur at this point these expressions : " Con- 
demned to the wrath of God and eternal death." "Those 
defects and that concupiscence are a thing criminal, in its own 
nature worthy of death.":}: 

1. The great proposition that original sin condemns and 
brings now also eternal death, i. e. that, left to its The scripture 
natural consequences, unchecked in any way by Z^lit^lThl 
God, this condemnation and death would be the 8is - 
result, is already involved in the previous Thesis. The present 
Thesis was meant by the confessors to be the practical infer- 
ence from that, and that Thesis was mainly set forth in order 
to this, and the emphasis of the connection is this, that origi- 

* Rudelbach's Ref. Luth. u. Union, p. 626. 

f See Weber's ed. Weimar, 1781. % Hase, L. S., p. 15. 



410 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

nal sin is so truly sin as to bring its last and most fearful 
result, the wrath and condemnation of God, and eternal death. 
If original sin be truly sin, then, unchecked, it of necessity 
involves men in the final results of sin. If in itself, in its own 
essence and nature, it be sin, then is it in itself criminal, and 
in its own nature deserving of condemnation, and if condemned 
at all, it must, apart from God's grace, be condemned forever, 
for nature has in it no power of moral self-recuperation. The 
guilt of original sin would expose men to wrath, and its help- 
lessness would prevent them forever from rising from that 
wrath. It is said that this sin " now also " (nunc quoque) 
"brings eternal death." This is true as over . against the idea 
that original sin brought death only to Adam, not to all his 
posterity ; or, that its effect was confined to the Old Dispensa- 
tion, so that Christ's redemptory work per se, and without 
the application of its benefits by the Holy Spirit through the 
appointed means, releases the whole race from the liability per- 
taining to original sin ; or, that children, because they are born 
in Christendom, or of Christian parents, are ipso facto free from 
the penalty. " Now also," as when Adam sinned ; " now also " 
in the New Dispensation, as under the Old ; " now also" though 
Christ has " been made a propitiation, not only for original, 
but for all the actual sins of men " (C. A. iii. 3) ; "now also " 
that there is a Christendom — original sin " brings eternal 
death " to all that are not born again. 

2. With this general presumption the language of Scripture 
strictly agrees: "The wages of sin is death." Rom. vi. 23. The 
Apostle, in these words, is speaking not only inclusively, but 
by preeminence, of the inherent sin of our nature. He uses 
them in logical connection with the proposition, " by one man 
sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death 
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Rom. v. 12. 
There is no break in the argument, and no change in the sense 
of the words. It is confessed that the sin of the first man 
reduced all the race to the condition of his fallen nature. It 
follows, then, that without some Divine arrest of natural conse- 
quence, the penalty which attended that condition in him 
would attend it in us. In his case the penalty was death, so 



TRUTH OF THESIS— SCRIPTURE EVIDENCE. 411 

then must it be in ours. Death is so tenaciously allied to sin 
that only God can separate them. 

3. Nor is the moral mystery of this fact so deep relatively 
as it is often regarded. Death, even eternal death, as the 
endurance of suffering, is not essentially so fearful a thing as 
sin. It would be more in keeping with divine holiness to per- 
mit suffering in the highest . degree than to permit sin in the 
least degree. Suffering is the removal of a lesser good than 
that which sin removes, and the bringing in of a lesser evil 
than that which sin brings in. Those, therefore, who admit 
that the natural consequence of Adam's sin was, that sin 
entered the world, and fixed itself there by God's permission, 
admit a far greater mystery even than would be involved in 
the doctrine that God would allow suffering to enter an 
unfallen world. It would not so sorely test our a priori antici- 
pation in regard to God to know that He allowed suffering in an 
innocent world, as to know that He allows a race to lose its 
moral innocence. 

If we had been told that in one of the stars above us the 
people are innocent, but that suffering is there ; and that in 
another, sin came in (by God's permission) to destroy the inno- 
cence of its people, the former statement would not shock our 
moral sense, or create the same difficulty of harmonizing the 
fact with God's spotless holiness and love of what is best 'as 
the latter would. But the case is even stronger, vastly stronger, 
than this supposition would imply, for the difficulty that 
presses us is not that suffering exists apart from sin, but that 
God, having allowed sin to enter the world, allowed the pen- 
alty of death to follow that sin. 

Furthermore, if it were a doctrine of the Bible that the race 
is actually lost forever because of original sin, the mystery of 
the loss would be a less mystery than that of the permission of 
sin. Those who admit the existence and perpetuation of 
original sin, admit therefore a mystery greater than the doc- 
trine of the absolute loss of this sinful race in consequence of 
original sin would be. Here, as in all other mysteries of Reve- 
lation, Rationalism, touching with its plausible, but weak hand, 
the less mystery is compelled to acknowledge the greater. 






412 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

4. But the doctrine of the Confession is not that this loss of 
the race actually takes place, but that original sin, unchecked 
by God, tends to this, and that such, apart from the provisions 
of his grace in Christ and the Holy Spirit, would be the result. 
This is made very .clear by the historical citations with which 
our discussion of this Thesis opens. 

5. If it be argued that it is impossible before any moral act, 
or moral choice, a human creature should have an element 
which, unchecked in its results, would produce death, we reply, 
that it would much more seem impossible that before any 
moral act, or moral choice, a human creature should have an 
element which, not only unchecked, but with the mightiest 
checks, actually results in conscious sin, and is itself sin. But 
the latter is admitted by all who acknowledge the existence of 
original sin. Much more then should they admit the former. 
If we have sin without an act of our will, much more may we 
have death, the result of that sin, without an act of our will. 

6. We see, furthermore, that all the visible results of Adam's 
sin to Adam are perpetuated to us his descendants, and this 
creates a powerful presumption that the invisible results of that 
sin are also perpetuated to us. The sorrows of Eve are the sorrows 
of her daughters ; the sorrows of Adam are the sorrows of his 
sons ; the curse of the ground, the curse of temporal death, the 
exclusion from Paradise, all are perpetuated to us. But the prin- 
ciple on which God allows the perpetuation of a fellowship in 
these visible results of Adam's fall is the principle on which He 
would also allow the natural tendency of our sin to run out into 
the invisible results of the Fall, that is, into eternal death. If 
God had no right to allow the one tendency, He had no right to 
allow the other. If He has no right to allow Adam's sin to bring 
upon us, apart from His grace, Adam's spiritual curse, He has 
no right to allow Adam's sin to bring upon us Adam's tempo- 
ral curse. But confessedly, He does the latter, and has the 
right to do it ; equally therefore has He the right to do the 
former, and if he does not, it is on another ground than that 
of abstract justice. 

It is not anything I did which places me in a sorrowful 
world, with a frail body, a clouded mind, a sad heart, and 



TRUTH OF THESIS— SCRIPTURE EVIDENCE. 413 

under subjection to death ; it is not what I did, but what lam, 
that subjects me to these, and I am what I am because I 
spring from Adam, and because he fell. And on that same mys- 
terious, but indubitable principle, that what we are, as well as 
what we do, determines our destiny, God might, in keeping with 
the justice which nature reveals, actually subject the race to the 
eternal destiny which was the result of sin, apart from the 
Divine arrest of its tendency, to Adam. No human logic, which 
acknowledges the Providence of God in nature, could overthrow 
the proposition, even were it absolute, that original sin brings 
eternal death to the race. 

7. Nor. is the language too strong, that original sin is, in its 
own nature, worthy of death. The word of God teaches that 
there are but two states possible, one of life, the other of death. 
Death is always the result of what is due. Life is always the 
result of grace. Death is the wages of sin. Eternal life is the 
gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Death is the natural due then of every human creature as a 
creature of sin, and eternal life can only come to man as a 
gracious and free gift. Nature, as well as voluntary character, 
is regarded as properly subject to penalty. " We were by 
nature children of wrath, even as others," Eph. iii. 3, that is, 
we who are Jews by nature, by our natural descent ; we who are 
born Jews are, by our natural birth, just as the Gentiles are, sub- 
ject to wrath, because in both cases men are born with a sinful 
nature. Death is the due of sin. 

8. That infants are included is not only necessary, logically, 
and involved in the words of Paul just quoted, but is expressly 
taught. " Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them 
that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's trans- 
gression." 

9. The results of Adam's fall, and of Christ's mediation, are 
represented as entirely parallel in the range of their subjects ; 
the one embraces exactly the same persons as the other. " If 
Christ died .for all, then were all dead." "As in Adam all 
died, so in Christ shall all be made alive," (in the resurrection). 
" Our Lord Jesus Christ, by the grace of God, tasted death for 
every man." " By the offence of one, judgment came upon all 



414 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

men to condemnation ; even so by the righteousness of one the 
free gift came upon all men nnto justification of life. For as by 
one man's disobedience many (oi polloi, ' the many,' mankind,) 
were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many, 
('the many,' mankind,) be made righteous." 

10. The reply might be made, however, that not all men are 
actually justified through Christ, and that hence the parallel is 
to be restricted, and that not all men are necessarily actually 
involved in the death of sin. But in fact this limitation only 
makes the parallel more perfect. Not all embraced in the 
ideal of Christ's work are actually saved, because the work is 
arrested in its tendency either negatively by lack of the means 
appointed for its application, or positively by the natural will 
of those who have the means, but resist their power. So, on 
the other hand, not all embraced in the ideal of sin's work are 
actually lost, because that work is arrested on God's side by 
the means appointed as its antidote, and on man's side by the 
divinely enlightened will of those who, having these means, do 
not resist their power. Nature, so to speak, undoes Christ's 
work in the one case, as grace undoes sin's work in the other. 
God's work in grace in the one case, if unarrested, is ample 
for the salvation of every human creature, as sin's work, in the 
other case, if unarrested, is ample for the loss of every human 
creature. Thus the all-embracing work of love on the one 
hand, freely giving life, and the all-pervading power of sin on 
the other, meriting death, rest in the same generic mode of 
Divine dealing. Take away Christ, and every human Creature 
dies in Adam ; take away Adam, and every human creature 
lives in Christ. But though the range of Adam's work and 
of Christ's work be the same, the power of Christ's work tran- 
scends that of Adam's. God's love in Christ outweighs all. 
" Not as the offence, so also is the free gift." (The Apostle 
takes a new point of view : he had shown wherein the offence 
is as the free gift, to wit, in its range ; now he looks at a 
point in which the free gift transcends the offence.) "For 
if through the offence of one, many (' the many,' man- 
kind,) be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by 
grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded 



TENTH THESIS. 415 

unto many." " Where sin abounded, grace did much more 
abound." 

Thus the cloud of death which hung upon the horizon of 
our world in its morning parts before the beaming of the Sun 
of Righteousness, and then, transfigured by His ray, billows 
around His rising, purpling in His glory. Nothing can mag- 
nify His brightness, but this cloud diffuses it. 'That cloud lifts 
itself more and more with the ascending Sun, and at His full 
noon shall have melted away forever. 

X. This natural consequence of original sin, to wit, condem- 
nation and eternal death, is actually incurred by Tenth Thesis. 
all who are not born again. Conf., "His qui non the^ewwrtiffor 
renaseantur." " Alle die so nicht wiederum neu the pardon and 

removal of origi- 

geboren werden. naisin. 

1. If the natural tendency and consequence of original sin be 
death, one of two results is inevitable. Either sin actually 
goes on and results in death, or its natural tendency is in some 
way arrested. Our tenth Thesis affirms that the only way in 
which it can be arrested is for its subject- to be born again. 
By nature we are born to sin, and through sin to eternal 
death. By grace we are born again to a renewed heart, and 
through a renewed heart to eternal life. 

2. The relative innocence of any human being cannot in 
itself save him. The innocence of any human being can only 
be relative. There is a great difference in the character of 
unregenerate persons relatively to each other, but there is no 
difference whatever in their nature. A thousand things mould 
and modify character, but the corrupt heart is untouched by 
them all. The phenomena of a corrupt heart are infinitely 
diversified, not only in their number, but in their intensity. 
The young man whom Jesus loved, and Judas who betrayed 
his Lord, were diverse in their character. The one was lovely, 
the other as odious as it was possible for unregenerated charac- 
ter to be. But they had alike an unchanged heart — their 
nature was the same. The innocence of the young man, rela- 
tively to Judas, could not save him. The so-called innocence 
of the best man falls infinitely more short of absolute inno- 
cence than it rises above the deepest absolute criminality 



416 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

relatively. Every man is more guilty absolutely than he is 
innocent relatively. 

3. There is a relative innocence in the infant as contrasted 
with the adult ; this the Scriptures freely allow : " In malice 
be ye children." 1 Cor. xiv. 20. Even the first budding of 
sin seems only to lend the charm of vivacity to the little crea- 
ture. The baleful passion which, in the matured Cain, darkens 
all time with its deed of murder, may have made his father 
and mother smile as it flushed and sparkled in the miniature 
lines of anger traced on his face in childhood. But the nature 
of Cain was the same in the first glow of anger as in the last, 
and the nature which was in the first glow of anger was in 
Cain before that anger arose. That anger did not make his 
moral nature, but was made by it. The great need of the 
human creature is indeed to be saved from that moral nature, 
and this can only be done by giving him a new heart. The 
moral nature of the new-born infant is as truly a sinful one as 
that of the grey-haired old reprobate, even as the physical 
nature and mental nature of that babe are as really a human 
nature, its body as really a human body, its soul as really a 
human soul, as those of the ripe adult. God can no more save 
sin in nature than he can save it in character, and hence a new 
nature is as absolutely needed by an infant as by an adult. 
To deny that an infant is capable of regeneration is to deny 
that it is capable of salvation. The tree is known by its fruit, 
not made by it. While the tree is corrupt, the fruit must be 
corrupt. If the tree be made good, the fruit will be good. 
Our proposition, then, clothing it in the guise of our Saviour's 
figure, would be this : That the outgrowth and fruit of this 
tree of our human nature must inevitably be deadly, unless the 
nature of the tree itself be changed. The osik-nature is the 
same in the acorn as in the monarch of the forest who has cast 
his shade for centuries. If the acorn grow, it inevitably 
grows to the oak. 

4. Eor the same great reason the relative innocence which 
arises from ignorance cannot save men. There are some in 
nominal Christendom whose privileges are so few that their 
accountability is relatively diminished. The millions of Jews, 






TENTH THESIS. 417 

Mohammedans, and Pagans are relatively innocent in charac- 
ter, as compared with the un regenerate who have the full light 
of the Gospel. Yet, however few and light, relatively, their 
stripes may be, as they knew not their Master's will, it is evi- 
dent that they too can never reach heaven with an unchanged 
nature. Their disqualification is none the less real because it 
is relatively less voluntary than that of others. Man is born 
with a moral nature, which unfits him for heaven. More than 
this, the moral nature has in it something which God abhors 
and condemns. Unless in some way another moral nature is 
given him, he not only must negatively be excluded from 
heaven, but must, positively, come under God's wrath. It is 
said, " As many as have sinned without law shall also perish 
without law ; " but it is nowhere said, " As many as have been 
holy without law, shall be saved without law." On the con- 
trary, the Apostle's whole argument is designed to prove " all 
the world " " guilty before God." 

5. If the relative innocence, either of adults or of infants, 
could save them from death and take them to heaven, their 
natures being still under the power of inborn sin, heaven itself 
would simply be, in one respect, earth renewed ; it would be 
the abode of sinful beings. In another respect it would be 
worse than earth, for its sinful beings, unrestrained by the fear 
of death, would yield themselves without check to the thoughts 
and desires of their corrupt natures. Going to heaven would, 
in the case supposed, make no more change in the heart than 
going to church. A bad heart may have its worst thoughts 
in the best places. If sin could be self-generated in heaven, as 
in the case of angels once holy but now fallen, much more 
might and would it, already existing, reveal itself there. If 
angels kept not their first estate in heaven, much more would 
man there reveal his last and fallen estate ; and it might as 
well be said that to put Lucifer back in heaven unchanged is 
to be thought of, as that our human nature unchanged is to 
be placed there. 

6. Hence the testimony of Scripture is of the most explicit 
kind as to the absolute necessity of the new birth to every human 
creature. Our Lord Jesus says : " Except a man (that is any 

27 



418 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

one and every one) be born again, be cannot see tbe kingdom 
of God." If our blessed Lord bad, however, anticipated that 
there might be an effort to evade the all-comprehending force 
of his words, he could not more completely have made that 
effort hopeless than by adding, as he did : " That which is 
born of the flesh is flesh," that is, every human being born 
naturally into our world is fleshly, and needs a new birth. 

7. There is one absolute characteristic of all God's children : 
" They were born not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of 
the will of man, but of God," that is, no human creature, in 
and by his natural birth, is God's child, but must, in order 
to this, be born of Him. The " new creature " alone avails. 
" Every one that doeth righteousness is born of Him.'''' 

8. Before these invincible necessities of the case, and this 
irresistible witness of God's Word, goes down the delusive idea 
that the work of Christ covers the case either of Pagans or of 
infants, without their being born again. Semi-Pelagianism and 
Arminianism, acknowledging some sort of original sin, and 
some sort of a need of a remedy, have said that for Christ's 
sake infants, having no conscious sin, are forgiven, and with- 
out anything further being needed, pass at death into heaven. 
There are many who imagine that this view gives relief to the 
great difficulty of the subject, that it avoids the doctrine that 
infants may be lost, and yet concedes that they all are so far 
sinners as to need a Saviour ; that it proposes something that 
shall be done for them, and yet escapes the obnoxious theory 
of the possibility and necessity of infant regeneration. This view 
has been mainly devised indeed to evade the last-mentioned 
doctrine. But it is far from escaping the pressure of the diffi- 
culty. That difficulty is, that the nature of the child is a sin- 
ful nature. To forgive absolutely that sin of nature simply 
for Christ's sake, would be to remove the penalty, while the 
guilty thing itself is untouched. It would be to suppose that 
the child is removed from the penal curse of sin, yet left fully 
under the power of sin itself. It involves the justification of 
an unrenewed nature. It supposes Christ's work to operate 
apart from the applying power of the Holy Spirit, and on this 
theory an unregenerate human creature, forgiven for Christ's 



TENTH THESIS. 419 

sake, in its untouched sin, would pass into heaven still unre- 
generate. The theory errs utterly either by excess or by lack. 
If a child has not a sinful nature, it needs no Saviour. If its 
sin is not a proper subject of condemnation, it needs no forgive- 
ness. But if it has a sinful nature, it needs not only a Saviour 
from penalty, but a renewing power to save it from the in- 
dwelling of sin ; if it is subject to condemnation, it not only 
needs forgiveness, but the exercise of a gracious power which 
will ultimately remove what is condemnable. In other words, 
it needs to be born again. 

9. Nothing but downright Pelagianism of the extremest 
kind can save any man logically from the conclusion we are 
urging. Original sin must be counteracted in its natural 
tendency to death, first, by a power which removes its penalty, 
and secondly, by a power which ultimately removes the sin 
itself. The power which removes the penalty is in our Lord 
Jesus Christ, who made atonement for original sin, as well as 
for the actual sins of men ; the power which can remove the 
sin itself is in the new birth. The former, to use the old 
theological terminology, is necessary to remove the reatus of 
original sin, that is, its present guilt and immediate liability ; 
the latter is necessary to remove \tsfomes, the inciting foment- 
ing power itself, or, as it is sometimes called, the materiale, or 
essence of sin, which would, left to itself, ever renew the guilt 
and its curse. It is as impossible to separate the justification 
of an infant from its regeneration, as it would be to justify an 
adult while his heart is unchanged. These two things, justifi- 
cation and regeneration, may be separated mentally, and are 
really distinct, but they are never separated in fact. Unless 
there be regeneration, there will be no forgiveness. A regen- 
erated man is always justified, a justified man is always regen- 
erated ; and unless a man be both, he is neither. A justified 
infant, unregenerate, is inconceivable in the kingdom of God ; 
such justification would belong to the kingdom of darkness. 
Alike then to the attainment of both forgiveness and sanctifi- 
cation, or of either, there is a necessity which is most abso- 
lute ; no human being has been, or can be, saved from eternal 
death unless he be born again. 



420 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

10. On this point, all sound theology of every part of our 
common Christianity is a unit. It is not distinctively a Lu- 
theran doctrine. The Romish and Greek Churches recognize 
the impossibility of the salvation of any human creature with- 
out a change from that condition into which he is born. The 
Calvinistic theory (including that of the Calvinistic Baptists,) 
involves the doctrine that infants need regeneration to fit them 
for heaven ; that they are capable of regeneration, that it actu- 
ally takes place in the case of elect infants, and that it takes 
place in this life. Calvin : * " How, say they (the Anabaptists), 
are infants regenerated, who have neither the knowledge of 
good or evil? "We answer, that it does not follow that there 
is no work of God, because we are incapable of grasping it, for 
it is clear that infants who are to be saved (as certainly some of 
that age are saved) are previously regenerated (ante . . regenerari), 
by the Lord." That milder school of Calvinism, which merci- 
fully, and perhaps illogically, departs from the rigor of the 
older and more self- consistent Calvinism, and believes that 
•none but elect infants die in infancy, does not, nevertheless, 
depart from the old and true view, that the saved infant is 
regenerate, and can only as regenerate be saved. 

This great fact must not be forgotten, that on the main 
difficulty of this part of the doctrine of original sin, all but 
Pelagians are in unity of faith with our Church. The testi- 
mony of the Church through all ages is most explicit on this 
point : That no un regenerate human being, infant or adult, 
Pagan or nominal Christian, can be saved. Without holiness, 
no man shall see the Lord — but no man can be holy with his 
natural heart unchanged. Except we have the Spirit of 
Christ we are none of His ; but this Spirit is given to us in 
and by the new birth alone. 

XL We have seen the absolute necessity of the new birth to 

Eleventh The- ever T human creature, and we now affirm as our 

sis. The iioiy Eleventh Thesis : That as the new birth is abso- 

Spirit the sole . . ' 

author of the luteLy essential to the salvation ot every one of our 
race, so the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential to 
the new. birth. " Durch heiligen Geist," " Per spiritum 
sanctum." 

* Instit. (IV, xvi. 17.) 



ELEVENTH THESIS. 421 

When the new birth takes place, it is invariably wrought by the 
Holy Spirit. This proposition sounds like a truism. Theoret- 
ically, all Christians, with any pretensions to the name Evan- 
gelical, would accept it, and yet, practically, it is constantly 
ignored. Let our faith rest on this, that whether with means 
or without means, the Holy Spirit is the author of regenera- 
tion, simply and absolutely ; that the human being can accom- 
plish no part of it whatever. It is not man's own work, it is 
not the work of his mind, of his heart, of his will, but it is 
God's work in his mind, in his heart, in his will. The power 
of an adult human being in the matter of his regeneration is 
absolutely negative. He can resist, he can thwart, he can 
harden himself, but in and of himself he cannot yield, or con- 
sent, or make his heart tender. 

The adult is as helpless positively, in the power of producing 
his own regeneration, as the infant is. The adult can, indeed, 
go, and must go to the preached word, and can and must go to 
the Bible : he can use the .means, and with them conjoin fer- 
vent prayer ; but it is the Spirit of God who regenerates the 
man through the means, not the man who regenerates him- 
self, either through the means or apart from them. The adult, 
indeed, with the means, may either resist the Holy Spirit or 
cease to resist. He may refuse to let Him work, or he may 
suffer Him to work. The difference in the course pursued 
here makes the difference of result between two adults, one of 
whom becomes regenerate, and the other does not. It is not 
that the one regenerates himself, and the other refuses to regen- 
erate himself. It is, that one suffers the Holy Spirit to regen- 
erate him through the Word, and the other refuses to permit 
Him. But even this negative power is derived from the pres- 
ence of grace and of its means, for a man to whom the Word 
is set forth is ipso facto not in a condition of pure nature. Even 
in the low realm of mere nature there are not wanting analo- 
gies to this spiritual fact. Man has, for example, physically 
no self- nourishing power. The nutritive property of food 
exerts itself on him. The food itself is the medium or means 
of nutrition. Man receives the food outwardly, and the mys- 
terious power of nutrition exerts itself through the food thus 



422 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

received. One man lives, the other starves ; not that the first 
has any power of self-nutrition, but that he received the out- 
ward thing through which the power of nutrition is exercised, 
and did not counteract its effect ; the other did not receive the 
food, and consequently failed to receive the nutritive energy, 
or receiving the food outwardly, like the first, presented some- 
thing in his system which resisted the working of its nutri- 
tive power. The dependence of the adult on nutriment is 
the same as that of the infant. The adult can, indeed, ask 
for nutriment, an asking which is prayer, and the infant can- 
not. The adult, with reflective consciousness, craves, and with 
reflective consciousness receives nutriment, which the infant 
cannot do ; but the life of neither is self-sustained. Both must 
be nourished of God by means of food. The mystery of regen- 
eration lies in this central mystery, that the new man is a crea- 
ture, not a manufacture ; he is born, not self-made ; his moral 
condition is the result, primarily, essentially, and positively, 
of the divine will, not of his own — he is the child of God: 
" Which were born, not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will 
of man, but of God." With God all things are possible. 
" God is able of the very stones to raise up children unto Abra- 
ham ; " and if of the hard rock we tread upon, He could make 
tender and faithful hearts, who shall attempt to limit His 
energy in regard to any of our race, to whom his promises are 
given? If God could, from inanimate Nature's hardest shapes, 
raise up faithful children to faithful Abraham, much more can 
He raise them up from infants, the children of His people — 
the children of the covenant. The internal processes of regen- 
eration are hidden from us. " The wind bloweth where it 
listeth (the Spirit breathes where He will), and thou hearest 
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and 
whither it goeth. So is every one that is born of the Spirit." 
God claims for Himself the whole work of our regeneration. 
" Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but 
according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regen- 
eration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost." Titus iii. 5. 

The absolute essential in regeneration, and the only absolute 
essential in the way of an agent, is the Holy Spirit. Not even 



COVENANT PRIVILEGES. 423 

the means belong to this absolute essential, but merely to the 
ordinary essentials. The only previous condition in the human 
soul positively necessary when the Holy Spirit approaches it, 
is that it shall not resist His work. Before the ™ 

The aosolute 

true doctrine of the supreme and sole necessity of Essential, 
the Holy Spirit's work, as the author of regeneration, the great 
mystery of infant regeneration and of infant salvation passes 
away. The Holy Spirit can renew the infant because it does 
not resist His work. If, therefore, the Holy Spirit wishes to 
regenerate an infant, He can regenerate that infant. Who will 
dispute this proposition ? We do not here affirm that He will 
regenerate, or wishes to regenerate one of the many millions 
who die in infancy. We simply ask now for toleration to this 
proposition, that the Holy Spirit, if He wishes, can renew the 
nature of a child. Admit this, and there is nothing more to 
settle but the question of fact, and the decision of that ques- 
tion rests, not on speculation, but on the witness of the Word 
of God. 

If the Holy Spirit alone can produce this new birth, then it* 
is evident, 

1. That the work of Christ cannot produce that new birth in 
itself, separate from the applying power of the Holy 

Spirit. It is the gracious Spirit who " takes of the 
things that are Christ's, and makes them ours." 

2. The relation to Christian parents can, in itself, have no 
regenerating power. The child of the holiest of christian p a - 
our race has the same nature as the child of the ™ nts - 
most godless, and needs the same work of the Holy Spirit. 

3. Eor can birth, in the midst of covenant privileges, have 
in itself a regenerating power. The child whose Covenau t p,iv- 
parents are Christians, or who has one Christian ile g es - 
parent, is indeed u holy " (a/iog), that is, is separated by the fact 
of such birth from heathendom. The children of Christendom 
are^, in virtue of that fact, generically Christian ; not indeed 
members of the Christian Church, as separated from the 
world, as some imagine, and receiving in their baptism merely 
a recognition of a relation existing apart from that baptism, 
but members of the Christian world, considered as separated 



424 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

from the Pagan or Jewish world. The child of Christian 
parents, or of a Christian parent, is, so to speak, constructively 
and provisionally, and by a natural anticipation, to be consid- 
ered Christian, but is not actually such until it is baptized. 
Thus a resident foreigner in our land is, constructively and 
provisionally, an American citizen, but not actually such until 
he is naturalized. 

This is the true force of the passage to which we are allud- 
ing (1 Cor. vii. 14), and which is mainly relied on by those 
who think that infants are born of the flesh into the earthly 
kingdom of God — the Church. This is apparent on a careful 
examination of the text. The question before the Apostle was 
this : If one of a married couple became Christian, the other 
remaining Pagan, would this diversity of religion necessitate 
a divorce ? The Apostle replies it would not. " If any brother 
hath a wife that belie veth not, and she be pleased to dwell with 
him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath 
an husband that belie veth not, and if he be pleased to dwell 
with her, let her not leave him. For the unbelieving husband 
is sanctified (vy/iacTai) by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is 
sanctified (jiyiaGrm) by the husband. Else were your children 

UNCLEAN (cocaSapra) ; but 110W are they HOLY (a/ia)." 

Let it be noted, that three classes of persons are here spoken 
of as holy or sanctified : 

1. The unbelieving husband is sanctified ; that is, is holy, 
because his wife is a Christian. 

2. The unbelieving wife is sanctified ; that is, is holy, because 
her husband is a Christian. 

3. The children are sanctified ; that is, are holy, because one 
of the parents is a Christian. It is evident then that this sanc- 
tification is not a moral one. The Pagan husband is not, by 
virtue of having a Christian wife, any less a godless man; 
neither then can the Apostle mean that his child is holy 
morally because its mother is holy. It is evident, furthermore, 
that the sanctification is not an ecclesiastical one. The 
Pagan wife is not a member of the Church because her 
husband is a Christian, neither then is her child holy ecclesias- 
tically, separated to the Christian Church, because its father is 



COVENANT PRIVILEGES. 425 

a Christian. It necessarily follows then that the sanctification 
being neither moral, nor ecclesiastical, is generic, and that this 
generic character has a limitation in the nature of the question 
and of the case. The question was : Do the children belong to 
Christendom or Heathendom ? The one parent is Christian, 
the other Pagan. Where is the generic relation of the child, 
or offspring, whether infant or adult, of these parents ? The 
reply of the Apostle is : That God decides mercifully, what 
could not be decided logically, and gives the children the 
benefit of His goodness in considering them as generically 
related to the better system, not to the worse. 

The unbelieving father is, so far as this question is concerned, 
constructively in Christendom, so that his child is no more a 
Pagan child than if both parents were Christians. On the 
other side, the child is so far constructively in Christendom as 
if both parents were Christians. The unbelieving father is so 
far a Christian that his child is a member of Christendom, not 
of Pagandom. The child is so far holy that it is now one of the 
children of Christendom, not one of the children of Pagandom. 
"Within the great world there is the generic aggregate of 
persons belonging to the world of Pagandom, and to the world 
of Christendom. The world of Christendom is generically holy, 
that is, as Christendom, it is separate generically from Pagan- 
dom. But within the world of Christendom there is a further 
separation. The Church is sanctified, or holy, as separate from 
the nominally Christian world ; this is an ecclesiastical holi- 
ness. But within this Church there is yet a further separation 
of genuine Christians from merely nominal ones, and this holi- 
ness is moral. The answer of the Apostle is, not that the chil- 
dren (adult as well as infant) are morally holy, nor that they are 
ecclesiastically holy, but that they are generically holy, — 
in a word, that they are just, as little of Pagandom, just as 
much children of Christendom, as if both parents were Chris- 
tians. All children who have either both parents, or but one 
parent, Christian, alike belong, not to Christian saints, nor to 
the invisible church, not to the Christian body in the visible 
church, nor to the Christian family, in a word, they belong 
not to the Christian species, but simply to the Christian genus 



426 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

or Christian world, which we call Christendom. The real 
question settled then by the Apostle is no more than this, that 
the child of one Christian parent has the same spiritual rela- 
tion as the child whose parents are both Christians, leaving it 
in the main an open question what those relations are. Hence 
the inference from this passage goes to the ground, that children 
are members of the visible church by their birth, and much 
more the inference that they are born again by virtue of their 
relation to Christian parents. 

4. Nor is there any power in death to regenerate. There are 
those who seem to think that the body is the seat of original 
Death no regen- sin, and that all that is necessary to redeem the 
eratmg power. gQu j f rom the power of sin, is to separate it from 
the body. But the true primary seat of sin is the soul. The 
body can be spoken of as the seat of sin only in a secondary 
sense, and because of the soul's connection with it. The mere 
separation of the soul from the body, cannot in itself change 
the soul's moral condition. He that is unregenerate before 
death, remains unregenerate after death, unless after death the 
Holy Spirit make the great change. Death in itself can have 
no such power, and no such tendency. But if the Holy Spirit 
can work this change in an infant after death, He can 
just as readily do it before its death, and the whole idea 
of purgation after death, of a change of relation to God 
after the departure of the soul, of a renewal of probation in an 
eternal world, is utterly foreign to the entire tendency of the 
New Testament doctrine. To admit it, is to admit the exist- 
ence of a purgatory ; it would grant the Romish doctrine in 
its main point, and the controversy would narrow itself to the 
comparative trifles of the duration and modes of that purga- 
tory. ~No such refuge is necessary. The great change is 
wrought by the Holy Spirit alone, and the possibilities and 
probabilities of human regeneration are limited by nothing 
but His purpose and His power. Any regeneration for which 
infinite power is adequate, and which divine goodness purposes 
and promises, may and will be wrought. 

XII. This new birth by the Holy Spirit has Baptism as one 
of its ordinary means. Conf., " Durch die Taufe," " per Bap- 



THE MARBURG ARTICLES. . 427 

tismum." The part of the Second Article of the Augsburg 
Confession which comes under discussion in this thesis is 
that which asserts that original sin brings eternal Twelfth Thesis. 
death to all those who are not born a^ain of bap- JLtf tToSi 



sin. 



tism and of the Holy Spirit. We have shown the 
absolute necessity of being born again ; we have seen that 
the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential to that new birth ; it 
now remains to explain and vindicate our Confession in 
its declaration that the new birth must also be of Bap- 
tism. 

As this is one of the points specially objected to, and as 
these words have been omitted in the " Definite Platform," 
which, so far as its omission is evidence, denies not only the 
necessity of baptism, but the necessity altogether either of the 
new birth, or of the Holy Spirit to remove the results of origi- 
nal sin, we may be pardoned for dwelling at some length upon 
it. The doctrine of our Church in regard to baptism is one of 
the few fundamental points on which any part of evangelical 
Christendom avowedly differs with her. We propose to give, 
first, some historical matter bearing upon the origin and 
meaning of these words in our Confession. We shall present 
these chronologically. 

1529. The fifteen doctrinal articles of Luther, prepared 
at the Colloquy at Marburg, on this point run L The Mar . 

thuS ' burg Articles. 

" In the fourth place, we believe that original sin is a sin of 
such kind that it condemns all men, and if Jesus Christ had 
not come to our help with His life and death, we must have 
died eternally therein, and could not have come to the king- 
dom and blessedness of God." 

" In the fifth place, we* believe that we are redeemed from 
this sin, and from all other sins, and from eternal death, if we 
believe on the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who died for us ; and 
without this faith we cannot be absolved from a single sin by 
any work, condition, or order." 

" In the sixth place, that this faith is a gift of God, which 
we can gain by no antecedent work or merit, nor can reach by 
any power of our own, but the Holy Ghost gives and furnishes 



428 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

it where He will ; in our hearts, when we hear the Gospel or 
word of Christ." 

" In the seventh place, this faith is our righteousness before 
God." * 

1530. The Marburg Articles which were signed by Luther, 
ii. The xvii Melanchthon, Zwingli, and Oecolampadius,and the 
Doctrinal Arti- other leading theologians on both sides, were laid 
by Luther as the ground-work of the XYII Doc- 
trinal Articles, which were prepared the same year, and which 
appeared in 1530. These XYII Articles are the direct basis of 
the doctrinal portion of the Augsburg Confession. In the fourth 
of these Articles, Luther says : " Original sin would condemn all 
men who come from Adam, and would separate them forever 
from God, had not Jesus Christ become our representative and 
taken upon Himself this sin, and all sins which follow upon 
it, and by His sufferings made satisfaction therefor, and thus 
utterly removed and annulled them in Himself, as is clearly 
taught in regard to this sin in Psalm li., and Rom. v." f 

1533. In Melanchthon's German edition of the Confession, 
in The Ger- in 1533, the only edition in the German in which 
man Edition of any variations were made by him, and which has 
never been charged with deviating in any respect 
in meaning from the original Confession, this part of the Arti- 
cle runs thus : " (Original Sin) condemns all those under God's 
wrath who are not born again through Baptism, and* faith in 
Christ, through the Gospel and Holy Spirit.":): 

From these historical parallels and illustrations certain facts 
iv.Meaningof are very clear as to the meaning of the Confes- 

the Confession. «ion 

1. The Article teaches us what original sin would do if there 
Drift of the were no redemption provided in Christ. The mere 
Article. f ac £ ^^ Qhrigt has wrought out His work pro- 

vides a sufficient remedy, if it be applied, to save every human 
creature from the effects of original sin. Let not this great fact 

*The Articles are given in full in Rudelbach's Reformation, Lutberthum und 
Union, p. 665. 

•j- Luther's Werke: Jena v. 14. Mentzer : Exeges. Aug. Conf. 42. 
J Weber's Edit. Weimar, 1781. Corpus Reformator. xxvi. 725. 



WHO ARE REFERRED TO IN THIS ARTICLE? 429 

be forgotten. Let it never be left out of the account in look- 
ing at the mystery of original sin, that there is an ample 
arrangement by which the redemption of every human crea- 
ture from the results of original sin could be effected ; that 
there is no lack in God's provision for saving every one of our 
race from its results. " Our Lord Jesus Christ, by the grace 
of God, tasted death for every man." 

2. It is not the doctrine of our Confession that any human 
creature has ever been, or ever will be, lost purely i sanynian i ost 
on account of original sin. For while it supposes for original sin 
that original sin, if unarrested, would bring death, ° n y ' 

it supposes it to be arrested, certainly and ordinarily, by the 
Holy Spirit, through the divine means rightly received, and 
throws no obstacle in the way of our hearty faith that, in the 
case of infants dying without the means, the Holy Ghost, in 
His own blessed way, directly and extraordinarily, may make 
the change that delivers the child from the power of indwell- 
ing sin. Luther, in his marginal note on John xv. 22, says : 
" Denn durch Christum ist die Erbsiinde auffgehaben, und ver- 
damnet nach Christus zukunfft niemand. On wer sie nicht 
lassen, das ist, wer nicht gleuben wil." "Through Christ 
original sin is annulled, and condemneth no man since Christ's 
coming, unless he will not forsake it (original sin), that is, will 
not believe." 

3. It seems very probable from the parallels, that the con- 
fessors had mainly, though not exclusively, in their 
eye, in this particular part of the Article, original 
sin as developing itself in actual sin in the adult, 
and requiring the work of the Holy Ghost to save men from 
its curse. Hence the illustrious Pfaff, in his brief but very 
valuable notes on the Confession, says : " The language here 
has chiefly (maxime) reference to adults who despise baptism ;" 
and such is, unquestionably, the drift of the form in which 
Melanchthon puts it in the edition of 1533. The Larger Cate- 
chism* argues to the adult on the necessity of Baptism : 
"Baptism is no plaything of human invention, but has been 
instituted by God Himself, who has earnestly and strictly com- 

* 486, e, 



"Who arc main- 
ly referred to in 
this Article? 



430 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION-. 

manded that we should cause ourselves to be baptized (wir uns 
miissen taufen lassen), or we cannot be saved, (oder sollen nicht 
selig werden). No man is to think of it as a trifling matter — 
the mere putting on of a new coat." 

Grauer (who was styled " the shield and sword of Lutheran- 
ism "), in commenting on the words of the Confession, says : * 
" Inasmuch as Baptism is necessary to salvation, it is carefully 
to be noted what, and of what sort, is that necessity. "When 
the Augsburg Confession teaches that Baptism is necessary to 
salvation, it refers to the ordinary mode which God observes in 
saving men. For in that respect (ibi) Baptism is necessary, 
and, indeed, in such measure (ita) that if any one is unwilling 
to be baptized, when it is in his power to obtain Baptism, he 
shall surely be condemned ; for the contempt of the Sacrament 
condemns. The meaning of the Augsburg Confession, there- 
fore, is this, that Baptism is not a thing indifferent, which any 
one may use at his liberty, but that it is an external mean of 
such kind that every one embracing the Christian faith is 
bound (debet) to use it, if it is possible for him to obtain it. 
Bat the matter is different in a case of necessity, when any 
one cannot obtain it." 

4. The Confession does not teach that the outward fart of 
Baptism regenerates those who receive it. It says 

Baptism, in . . . 

what sense neces- that it is necessary to be born again of Baptism 
6ary * and of the Holy Spirit. It is evident from this that 

it draws a distinction between the two. It implies that we 
may have the outward part of Baptism performed, and not be 
born again ; but confessedly we cannot have the saving energy 
of the Holy Ghost exercised upon us without being born again , 
whether ordinarily in Baptism, or extraordinarily without 
Baptism. The very order of the words is significant, for the 
confessors do not say, and would* not say, "born of the Holy 
Spirit and Baptism : " but the order is the very reverse, " of 
Baptism and of the Holy Spirit." Hence, while the doctrine of 
the Confession is that the new birth itself is absolutely essen- 
tial to salvation, and that the energy of the Holy Spirit is 
absolutely essential to the new birth, it is not its doctrine that 

* Prselect. Academic, in August. Confess. Ed. Tert. Jena. 1659. p. 818. 



IS BAPTISM ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY? 431 

the outward part of Baptism is essential absolutely, nor that 
regeneration necessarily attends it. The necessity of the out- 
ward part of Baptism is not the absolute one of the Holy 
Spirit, who Himself works regeneration, but is the ordinary 
necessity of the precept, and of the means. It is necessary 
because God has enjoined it, and voluntary neglect to do what 
God has enjoined destroys man. It is necessary because God 
has connected a promise with it, and he who voluntarily 
neglects to seek God's promises in God's connections will look 
for them in vain elsewhere. It is necessary because God makes 
it one of the ordinary channels of His grace, and he who vol- 
untarily turns from the ordinary channel to seek grace else- 
where, will seek it in vain. It is so necessary on our part that 
we may not, we dare not, neglect it. But on God's part it is 
not so necessary that He may not, in an extraordinary case, 
reach, in an extraordinary way, what Baptism is His ordinary 
mode of accomplishing. Food is ordinarily necessary to human 
life ; so that the father who voluntarily withholds food from 
his child is at heart its murderer. Yet food is not so abso- 
lutely essential to human life that God may not sustain life 
without it. God's own appointments limit us, but do not limit 
Him. Man does live by food alone on the side of God's ordi- 
nary appointment ; yet he no less lives, when God so wills, not 
by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God. 

5. Hence, of necessity, goes to the ground the assumption 

that the Augsburg Confession teaches that unbap- 

. - 1 • t Is Ba P tism ab - 

tized infants are lost, or that any man deprived, soiuteiy neces- 

without any fault of his own, of Baptism is lost. sary? 
When we say absolute, we mean that which allows of no excep- 
tions. The absolute necessity of Baptism, in this sense, has 
been continually denied in our Church. 

The language of Luther is very explicit on this point.* 
In his " Christliches Bedenken " (1542), in reply to anxious 
Christian mothers, he (1) refutes and forbids the practice of 
the Romish Church, of baptizing a child not fully born, a 
practice based upon the idea of the absolute necessity of Bap- 

* Leipzig ed. of Luther's Works, Vol. xxii. pp. '100-422. 



432 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

tism to the salvation of a child. (2) He directs that those who 
are present should hold firmly to Christ's words, " unless a 
man be horn again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," and 
shall kneel down and pray that our Lord God may make this 
child partaker in His sufferings and death, and shall then not 
doubt that He knows full well how, in his divine grace 
and pity, to fulfil that prayer. Wherefore, since that 
little child has, by our earnest prayer, been brought to Christ, 
and the prayer has been uttered in faith, what we beg is estab- 
lished with God, and heard of Him, and he gladly receiveth it, 
as He Himself says (Mark x. 14) : " Suffer the little children to 
come unto me, and forbid them not ; for of such is the kingdom 
of God." Then should we hold that the little child, though it 
has not obtained Baptism, is not, on that account, lost ? " Dan 
das Kindlein, ob es wohl die rechte Taufe nicht erlanget, da- 
von nicht verloren ist." 

This " Bedenken " of Luther was accompanied by an expo- 
sition of the 27th Psalm, bv Bugenhagen, which 

Bugenhagen. ' J n ° 7 

Luther endorsed. The main object of Bugenhagen 
in this treatise is to give consolation in regard to unbaptized chil- 
dren, over against what he calls the shameful error, drawn not 
from God's Word, but from man's dreams, that such children 
are lost. Bugenhagen, after teaching parents to commit to 
God in prayer their child which cannot be baptized, adds : 
" Then shall we assuredly believe that God accepts the child, 
and we should not commit it to the secret judgment of God. 
To commit it to the secret judgment of God, is to throw to the 
wind, and despise the promises of God in regard to little chil- 
dren," (pp. 400-422). Both Luther and Bugenhagen discuss 
at large the argument for, and objections against, the doctrine 
of the salvation of unbaptized little children, and demonstrate 
that it is no part of the faith of our Church, that Baptism is 
absolutely necessary : that is, that there are no exceptions or 
limitations to the proposition that, unless a man is born again 
of the Water of Baptism, he cannot enter into the kingdom 
of God. 

Luther and Bugenhagen condemn those who refuse to 
unbaptized children the rites of Christian burial, and who 



IS BAPTISM ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY? 433 

object to laying their bodies in consecrated ground, as if they 
were outside of the Church. " We bury them," say they, " as 
Christians, confessing thereby that we believe the strong assur- 
ances of Christ. The bodies of these unbaptized children have 
part in the joyous resurrection of life."* 

Hoffman (Tuebingen, 1727), to whom we owe one of the 
most admirable of the older expositions of the Confession, 
says : " It does not follow from these words that all children 
of unbelievers, born out of the Church, are lost. Still less is 
such an inference true of the unbaptized children of Christians ; 
for although regeneration is generally wrought in infants by 
Baptism, yet it may be wrought extraordinarily \>j an opera- 
tion of the Holy Spirit without means, which the Augsburg 
Confession does not deny in these words. It merely desires 
to teach the absolute necessity of the new birth, or regenera- 
tion, and the ordinary necessity of Baptism. On the question 
whether the infants of the heathen nations are lost, most of 
our theologians prefer to suspend their judgment. To affirm 
as a certain thing that they are lost, could not be done without 
rashness." f 

Feuerlin (Obs. to A. C. p. 10,) says : " In regard to the 
infants of unbelievers, we are either to suspend our judgment 
or adopt the milder opinion, in view of the universality of the 
salvation of Christ, which can be applied to them by some 
extraordinary mode of regeneration." 

Carpzov, whose Introduction to our Symbolical Books is a 
classic in its kind, says : " The Augsburg Confession does not 
say that unbaptized infants may not be regenerated in an 
extraordinary mode. The harsh opinion of Augustine, and of 
other fathers, in regard to this, was based upon a misunder- 
standing of John iii. 5, for they regarded those words as 
teaching an absolute necessity of Baptism, when, in fact, that 
necessity is only ordinary — a necessity which binds us, and 
will not allow us to despise or neglect Baptism, but does not 
at all bind God to this mean, as if He could not, or would not, 
in a case of necessity arising in His own providence, perform 
that in an extraordinary way, which, in other cases, He per- 

* P. 418. f Pp. 36, 37. 

28 



434 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

forms in an ordinary one, through means instituted by Him- 
self. As, therefore, the texts of Scripture speak of an ordinary 
necessity, so also of that same sort of necessity, and of no 
other, do Protestants speak in the Augsburg Confession." 

It would be very easy to give evidence on the same point 
from all our most eminent Lutheran writers on the doctrine 
of our Church, but it is not necessary. No one who has read 
them will need any citations to establish a fact with which he 
is so familiar. They who tell the w T orld that it is a doctrine 
of our Church that Baptism is absolutely essential, and that 
all unbaptized persons are lost, can only be defended from the 
charge of malicious falsehood on the plea of ignorance. But 
ignorance, if it assume the responsibilities of knowledge, is 
not innocent. 

6. The truth is, no system so thoroughly as that of the 

infant saiva- Lutheran Church places the salvation of infants on 
tion in the Lu- the very highest ground. 

The Pelagian system would save them on the 
ground of personal innocence, but that ground we have seen 
to be fallacious. The Calvinistic system places their salva- 

TheCaivinistic ^ on on ^ ne g roun d of divine election, and speaks 
system. • of elect infants, and hence, in its older and more 

severely logical shape at least, supposed not only that some 
unbaptized, but also that some baptized infants are lost. 

1. In the Westminster Assembly's Confession, chap, vi., it is 
said: " Our first parents . . sinned. . . The guilt of this sin was 
imputed, and the same death, in sin and corrupted nature, con- 
veyed to all their posterity. Every sin, both original and 
actual, . . doth in its own nature bring guilt upon the sinner, 
whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God and curse of the 
law, and so made subject to death, with all miseries, spiritual, 
temporal, and eternal.'" The infant, then, Christian or Pagan, 
is born in " guilt," " bound over to the wrath of God and the 
curse of the law, and so made subject to eternal death." How 
does Calvinism relieve it from this condition ? The answer to 
this is given in what follows. 

2. The election of God rests upon nothing whatever foreseen 
in the creature (ch. iii. 5), " as causes or conditions moving 



THE CALVINISTIC SYSTEM. 435 

Him thereunto." The foreseen Christian birth, or early death, 
of a child can, therefore, in no respect bear upon its election. 
To assume that all children dying in infancy, even the children 
of Christians, are elect, and yet that the prevision of their 
being so born and so dying has no relation to their election, is 
illogical. 

3. " As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath 
He . . . foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they 
who are elected . . . are effectually called unto faith in Christ by 
His Spirit working in due season ; are justified, adopted, sanc- 
tified, and kept by His power through faith unto salvation. 
Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, 
justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only," 
(Westm. Conf. iii. 6.) 

According to this Article, where the " means thereunto " 
are not, the election is not. But in the Calvinistic system 
Baptism is not the means of grace, but only the sign or seal of 
grace (xxvii. 1). What is the mean whereby " elect infants " 
are effectually called unto "faith in Christ"? and do infants 
have " faith in Christ?" are they "justified, sanctified, kept 
through faith unto salvation " ? Only those who have the 
means are among the elect, and only the elect have the effectual 
means. Then Pagan, Mohammedan, and Jewish adults and 
infants are of necessity lost. But has even a baptized infant 
the means of effectual calling, of faith, of justification ? The 
Lutheran system says, It has. The Calvinistic system says, It 
has not. Either, then, the elect infant is saved without 
means, or there are none elect who die in infancy. But Cal- 
vinism denies both propositions, and is involved in hopeless 
contradiction. Either Baptism is properly a means of grace, 
and not its mere seal, or, according to Calvinism, logically 
pressed, no one dying in infancy is elect, and all infants are lost. 

4. "All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and 
those only, He is pleased effectually to call by His Word and 
Spirit . . " (x. 1). " This effectual call is not from anything at all 
foreseen in man " (x. 2)„ "Elect infants, dying in infancy, are 
regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who 
worketh when, and where, and how He pleaseth. So also are 



436 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

all other elect persons, who are incapable of being outwardly 
called by the ministry of the Word " (x. 3). " Faith is ordi- 
narily wrought by the ministry of the Word " (xiv. 1). Here 
the system comes again into direct self-contradiction. In the 
face of chap. iii. 6, it is taught that there is an " effectual 
call," without means, without anything outward, without the 
ministry of the Word, or Sacraments, utterly out of the ordi- 
nary channel. " It might be lawful," says Peter Martyr, " to 
affirm that young children be born again by the Word of God, 
but yet by the inward Word, that is by the comfortable power 
of Christ and his Holy Spirit,"* But if the Holy Ghost, with- 
out any means, regenerates some of the elect, why may there 
not be elect Pagans reached in the same way ? and if it be said 
that only those born in Christendom are elect, and, of conse- 
quence, extraordinarily called, is not that an admission that 
the mere fact of birth in Christendom in some sense influences 
the election? The Baptist system, which totally withholds 
Baptism from the infant, and every system which, while it con- 
fers the outward rite, denies that there is a grace of the Holy 
Spirit of which Baptism is the ordinary channel, are alike desti- 
tute, on their theory, of any means actually appointed of God 
to heal the soul of the infant. 

The Romish system, too Pelagian to think that original sin 
could bring the positive pains of eternal death, 
and too tenacious of the external rite to concede 
that an infant can be saved without that rite, leaves its theolo- 
gians, outside of this general determination, in a chaos of doubt, 
Some of them reach the middle theory, that the unbaptized 
infant is neither in heaven nor hell, but in a dreary limbo. 
Others consign it to hell. The Council of Trent declares: " If 
any one shall say that the Sacraments of the New Law are not 
necessary to salvation, and that without them, or a desire 
for them, men obtain . . . the grace of justification . . . ; let 
him be anathema." " If any one shall say that Baptism . . is 
not necessary unto salvation, let him be anathema." f The 
Catechism of the Council of Trent (Quest, xxx) : " Nothing 

* Common Place. Transl. by Anthonie Marten. 1583. Lond. Fol. iv. 136. 
f Sess. vii. Can. 4. De Baptism, Can. 5. 



THE ROMISH SYSTEM. 437 

can seem more necessary than that the faithful be taught that 
this Law of Baptism is prescribed by our Lord to all men, inso- 
much that they, unless they be regenerated unto God through 
the grace of Baptism, are begotten by their parents to everlasting 
misery and destruction, whether their parents be believers or 
unbelievers." In exposition of the doctrine of Trent, Bellar- 
min says : " The Church has always believed that if infants 
depart from this life without Baptism, they perish. The 
Catholic faith requires us to hold that little ones dyiug with- 
out Baptism are condemned to the penalty of eternal death." 
" Yet are they not punished with the penalty of sense or of 
sensible fire." "It is probable that those little ones sutler an 
internal grief (although a most mild one), forasmuch as they 
understand that they are deprived of blessedness, are sepa- 
rated from the society of pious brethren and parents, are 
thrust down into the prison of hell, and are to spend their life 
in perpetual darkness."* Dominicus a Soto says that " in the 
(Roman) Church it is a most fixed point that no little one 
without Baptism can enter into the kingdom of heaven." 
Maldonatus f says "they are condemned, with the goats, to 
the left hand ; that at once upon their death they descend into 
hell." CanusJ: "Their souls, with the bodies resumed, are 
thrust out into darkness." 

How beautiful and self- harmonious, over against all these, 
is the view of our Church. Over against the Cal- 

. . m ° , Lutheran System. 

vimst, it knows of no non- elect infants, but 
believes that our children are alike in the eyes of Infinite 
mercy. Over against the Pelagians it confesses that all chil- 
dren are sinners by nature, and believes that the Holy Spirit 
must change those natures. Over against the Anabaptists, 
and the school which is at heart in sympathy with the Ana- 
baptist theory, though it retains infant Baptism as a form, 
our Church believes that God has appointed Baptism as the 
ordinary channel through which the Holy Spirit works a 
change in the nature of a child. In the fact that there is an 
ordinary means appointed, our Church sees the guaranty that 

* Lib. I. De Bapt. eh. iv. Lib. VI. ch. ii., iv., vi. f On Matt. xxv. 23. 

% Cited in Gerhard Confessio Catholica, 1679. Fol. 1110. 



438 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

God wishes to renew and save children, and what so powerfully 
as this prompts the blessed assurance that if God fails to reach 
the child in His ordinary way, He will reach it in some other? 
The Calvinist might have doubts as to the salvation of a dying 
child, for to him Baptism is not a sure guaranty, and its grace 
is meant only for the elect ; the Baptist ought logically to have 
doubts on his system as to whether an infant can be saved, for 
his system supposes that God has no appointed means for con- 
ferring grace on it, and as we are confessedly under a system 
of grace and providence which ordinarily works by means, 
the presumption is almost irresistible, that where God has no 
mean to do a thing He does not intend to do it. But the con- 
servative Protestant cannot doubt on this point of such tender 
and vital interest. The baptized child, he feels assured, is 
actually accepted of the Saviour, and under the benignant 
power of the Holy Ghost. In infant Baptism is the gracious 
pledge that God means to save little children ; that they have 
a distinct place in His plan of mercy, and that He has a dis- 
tinct mode of putting them in that place. When, then, in the 
mysterious providence of this Lover of these precious little 
ones, they are cut off from the reception of His grace by its 
ordinary channel, our Church still cherishes the most blessed 
assurance, wrought by the very existence of infant Baptism, 
that in some other way God's wisdom and tenderness will 
reach and redeem them. Our confidence in the uncovenanted 
mercy of God is strong in proportion to the tenacity with 
which we cling to Baptism as an ordinary mean most neces- 
sary on our part, if we may possibly have it, or have it given. 
Because in the green valley, and along the still waters of the 
visible Church, God has made rich provision for these poor 
sin -stricken lambs, — because He has a fold into which He 
gathers them out of the bleak world, therefore do we the more 
firmly believe that if one of them faint ere the earthly hands 
which act for Christ can bring it to the fold and pasture, the 
great Shepherd, in His own blessed person, will bear to it the 
food and the water necessary to nurture its undying life, and 
will take it into the fold on high , for which the earthly fold is 
meant, at best, but as a safeguard for a little while. But the 



THE LUTHERAN SYSTEM. 439 

earthly fold itself, reared in the valley of peace, which lies 
along that water which ripples with something of a heavenly 
music, is a sure token of a love which will never fail of its 
object — a visible pledge that it is not the will of our Father 
in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. 

The Augsburg Confession, to sum up, affirmsfas we have 
seen, that there is an absolute necessity that every human 
being should be born again. It affirms, moreover, that the 
work of the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential to the produc- 
tion of this change. These points we have endeavored to 
develop. It affirms or implies, moreover, that Baptism is one 
of the ordinary means by which the Holy Spirit works the 
change, and that Baptism is the only ordinary means of uni- 
versal application, that is, the only means applicable alike to 
adults and infants. 

In this is implied : 

1. That the Holy Spirit ordinarily works by means. 

2. That the Water and Word of Baptism is one of those means. 

3. That the Water and Word of Baptism operates not as 
the proper agent, but as the means of that agent. 

4. That the Holy Spirit may, and where He loill, does work 
the new birth in, with, and under the Water and Word of 
Baptism, so that Baptism, in its completest sense, is the insep- 
arable complex of Water, Word, and Spirit, bringing heavenly 
grace. 

5. That this grace is offered whenever Baptism is adminis- 
tered, and is actually conferred by the Holy Spirit, whenever 
the individual receiving it does not present in himself a con- 
scious voluntary barrier to its efficacy. This barrier, in the 
case of an individual personally responsible, is unbelief. In 
the case of an infant, there is no conscious voluntary barrier, 
and there is a divinely wrought receptivity of grace. The 
objector says, the infant cannot voluntarily receive the grace, 
therefore grace is not given. We reverse the proposition and 
reply, the infant cannot voluntarily reject grace, therefore the 
grace is given. When we speak of a divinely wrought recep- 
tivity of grace, we imply that whatever God offers in the Word 
or element bears with the offer the power of being received. 



440 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

When He says to the man with a withered arm, " Reach 
forth thine arm ! " that which was impossible by nature is 
made possible by the very word of command. The Word and 
Sacraments per sc break up the absoluteness of the natural 
bondage ; they bring an instant possibility of salvation. Grace 
is in them so far prevenient that he who has them may be 
saved, and if he be lost, is lost by his own fault alone. 

Is our Confession warranted by Holy Scripture in presenting 
these views of Baptism ? We answer, unhesitatingly, It is. 

The washing of Naaman (1 Kings v. 14) in the Jordan, may 
be considered as a foreshadowing of the baptismal idea. A 
promise was given to Naaman, to wit, that his leprosy should 
be healed. This promise was conditioned upon the presup- 
posed faith of Naaman, but this faith was not sufficient ; a 
mean was appointed for the fulfilment of the promise, and 
faith in the mean was as absolutely prerequisite in Naaman 
as faith in the promise. Faith in God always involves faith 
in His means as well as faith in His promises. If Naaman 
had not believed the promise he would not have gone to the 
Jordan ; but if Naaman had believed the promise, and had 
yet refused to go and wash — which was the attitude he actu- 
ally assumed at first — he would not have been saved from the 
leprosy. 

The washing of E"aaman was not an arbitrary association, 
but was made of God a real aud operative mean, so that in, 
with, and under the water, the divine power wrought which 
healed his leprosy. Naaman w^as bound to the means, so 
that no element but water — no water but that of Jordan — 
would have availed to cleanse him. His faith would not 
cleanse him without the water. Abana and Pharpar, and 
every river that rolled, and every sea that lifted its waves, 
would have rolled and risen in vain, for the water that was to 
do such great things was not mere water, but that water 
which God had enjoined, and with which his promise was 
bound up (Luther: Smaller Catechism). Yet if Naaman, 
earnestly striving to reach the Jordan after the promise, had 
been providentially prevented, Ave may believe that God would 
have wrought the cure without the means. 



THE LUTHERAN SYSTEM. 441 

Let us look at the representations of the New Testament. 

1. Mark xvi. 16. " He that believeth, and is baptized, 
shall be saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned." 
(The Saviour does not repeat the allusion to Baptism in the 
second part of this sentence, because he that does not be- 
lieve is already condemned, whether baptized or not.) Here 
is something mentioned as a mean, to wit, Baptism, and 
salvation is in some sense conditioned upon it. When men 
read : " He that believeth, and is not baptized, shall be saved," 
they separate what God has joined, and contradict our Lord. 
But here, doubtless, our Lord draws the distinction in which 
our Church follows Him : faith is absolutely essential to sal- 
vation, baptism ordinarily essential only. 

2. Acts ii. 38. " Then Peter said unto them, Repent and 
be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for 
the remission of sin, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
Ghost." Here Baptism is represented as one mean, and for 
those who could have it, as the indispensable mean, to the 
remission of sin, and the receiving of the Holy Spirit. 

3. Acts xxii. 16. " Arise and be baptized, and wash away 
thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord." 

4. Eomans vi. 3. " Know ye not that so many of us as were 
baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death ? 
Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death." 

5. 1 Cor. xii. 13. " For by one Spirit are we all baptized 
into one body." Here the agency of the Holy Spirit in Bap- 
tism, and the fact that in Baptism rightly received we are 
ingrafted into the one body of Christ, are distinctly taught. 

6. Gal. hi. 27. " For as many of you as have been bap- 
tized into Christ, have put on Christ." Baptism, in its whole 
compass and intent, is not meant to introduce into mere out- 
ward relations, but bears with it a grace by which he who 
rightly uses it is invested with the righteousness of Christ. 

7. Col. ii. 12. " Buried with Him in Baptism, wherein 
(i. e. in Baptism) also ye are risen with him through the faith 
of the operation of God." 

8. 1 Peter hi. 20. " The ark .... wherein few, that is, 
eight souls, were saved by water. The like figure whereunto 



442 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

even baptism doth also now save us ;" or, more literally, 
" Which (that is, water) doth now save you also, (that is) the 
antitype Baptism (doth now save you)." 

9. John hi. 5. " Except a man be born of water, and of the 
Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God." It is on this 
verse preeminently the phraseology of the part of the Con- 
fession now under consideration is based. It embraces the 
same class of persons of which our Confession speaks. The 
Confession speaks of "all men naturally born after Adam;" 
the Saviour speaks of " that which is born of the flesh," that 
is, all our race, infant and adult. Our Confession says they 
have sin ; our Saviour says they are flesh, that is, are corrupt. 
The Confession says they must be born again, in order to be 
saved ; our Lord says that unless they are born again, they 
cannot see the kingdom of God. The Confession attributes 
the new birth to the Holy Spirit as agent, so does our Lord ; 
the Confession attributes a part in the new birth to Baptism, 
so does our Lord. "We must be born again of water. 

Alford, not a Lutheran, does not go too far when he says: 
" There can be no doubt, on any honest interpretation of the 
words, that ' to be born of water,' refers to the token or Out- 
ward sign of Baptism : ' to be born of the Spirit,' to the thing 
signified, or inward grace of the Holy Spirit. All attempts 
to get rid of these two plain facts have sprung from doc- 
trinal prejudices, by which the views of expositors have been 
warped. Such we have in Calvin, Grotius, Cocceius, Lampe, 
Tholuck, and others. All the better and deeper expositors 
have recognized the co-existence of the two — water and ths 
Spirit. So, for the most part the ancients : So Lucke, in his 
last edition, De Wette, Meander, Stier, Olshausen. Baptism, 
complete, with water and the Spirit, is the admission into the 
kingdom of God. Those who have received the outward sign 
and the spiritual grace have entered into that kingdom. 
... It is observable that here as ordinarily, the outward 
sign comes first, and then the spiritual grace, vouchsafed in 
and by means of it, if duly received." 

10. Ephes. v. 25-27. " Christ loved the Church, and gave 
Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with 



THE CALVINISTIC SYSTEM. 443 

the washing of water by the Word, that He may present it 
to Himself a glorious Church." 

11. Heb. x. 22. " Let us draw near with a true heart, in 
full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an 
evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." 

On this verse Alford remarks : " There can be no reasonable 
doubt that this clause refers directly to Christian baptism. 
The ' washing of water,' Eph. v. 26, and ' the washing of 
regeneration,' Titus iii. 5, and the express mention of ' our 
bodies ' here, as distinguished from ' our hearts,' stamps this 
interpretation with certainty, . . . for ' our bodies ' confines 
the reference to an outward act. And so Theophylact, Theo- 
^doret, (Ecumenius, etc., Bohme, Kuinoel, Tholuck, De "Wette, 
Bleek, Liinemann, Delitzsch, and the majority of commenta- 
tors. Still, in maintaining the externality of the words, as 
referring, and referring solely to Baptism, we must remember 
that Baptism itselp is not a mere external rite, but at every 
mention of it carries the thought further, to wit, to that spir- 
itual washing of which it is itself symbolical and sacramental." 

According to Delitzsch, " The washing the body with pure 
water is purely sacramental, the effect of baptism taken in its 
whole blessed meaning and fulfilment as regards our natural 
existence. As priests we are sprinkled, as priests we are 
bathed . . . washed in holy Baptism." 

12. 1 John v. 6-8. " This is He that came by water and 
blood, even Jesus Christ ; not by water only, but by water 
and blood. And there are three that bear witness in earth, 
the Spirit, the water, and the blood : and these three agree in 
one." 

13. 1 Cor. vi. 11. " But ye are washed, but ye are sancti- 
fied, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and 
by the Spirit of our God." 

14. Titus hi. 5. " Not by works of righteousness which we 
have done, but according to His mercy He saved us by the 

WASHING OF REGENERATION, AND RENEWING OF THE HOLY GrHOST, 

which He shed on us abundantly." 

Alford says : " Observe that here is no figure : the words 
are literal : Baptism is taken as in all its completion, the out- 



444 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ward, visible sign accompanied by the inward spiritual grace ; 
and as thus complete, it not only represents, but is the new 
birth, so that, as in 1 Pet. iii. 21, it is not the mere outward 
act or fact of Baptism to which we attach such high and 
glorious epithets, but that complete Baptism by water and the 
Holy Ghost, whereof the first cleansing by water is, indeed, 
the ordinary sign and seal, but whereof the glorious indwell- 
ing Spirit of God is the only efficient cause and continuous 
agent. Baptismal regeneration is the distinguishing doc- 
trine of the new covenant (Matt. iii. 11,) but let us take care 
that we know and bear in mind what ' Baptism ' means : not 
the mere ecclesiastical act, not the mere fact of reception, by 
that act, among God's professing people, but that completed 
by the Divine act, manifested by the "operation of the Holy 
Ghost in the heart and through the life." 

The words of Calvin on this same passage deserve to be pro- 
duced : " It ought to be accepted as a principle among good 
men, that God does not trifle with us by empty figures, but by 
His own power performs that inwardly which by the external 
sign he exhibits outwardly. Wherefore Baptism is fitly 

AND TRULY CALLED THE LAVER OF REGENERATION. He rightly 

holds the power and use of the Sacraments, who so connects 
the thing and the sign, that he neither makes the sign empty 
and inefficacious, nor, on the other hand, for the sake of its 
honor, detracts from the Holy Spirit what is due to Him." 

This will suffice to show how amply, by the very text of 
Holy Scripture, and even by the confession of interpreters who 
are not of our Church, her Confession is authorized in declar- 
ing that Baptism is one of the ordinary means of the Holy 
Spirit in working the new birth. 

XIII. That Baptism is the only ordinary means of univer- 

Thirteenth sa l application will be denied by two classes alone. 

Thesis. Baptism The first class are those who deny that Baptism is 

the only ordinary 

means of univer- a mean oi grace at all, and those erronsts are 
sai application. a j rea( iy sufficiently answered by the passages we 
have given from the Word of God. The second class are 
those who deny that infants should be baptized, and who, con- 
sequently, maintain that there is no mean of grace provided 



PELAGIUS. 445 

for them. This error, so far as its discussion properly comes 
under the head of Original Sin, has already "been met. The 
ampler discussion of the question belongs to the Article on 
Baptism. 

Here then we reach the close of the positive part of the Arti- 
cle of the Augsburg Confession on Original Sin : the rest is 
antithetical. This Article of the Confession, as we have seen, 
is grounded in every line, and in every word, on God's sure 
testimony, and proves, in common with the other parts of that 
matchless Symbol in which it stands, that when our fathers 
sought in God's Word for light, sought with earnest prayer, 
and with the tears of holy ardor, for the guidance of the Holy 
Spirit into the deep meaning of His Word, they sought not in 
vain. 

XI Y. In maintaining the true doctrine of Original Sin, 
our Church, of necessity, condemns: Fourteenth 

1. The Pelagians; that is, it condemns them in ton ^ 'antithesis 
their doctrine, not by any means in their person, t0 the scriptural 

; ■> . . doctrine of Origi- 

so far as that is separable from their doctrine. nai sin. 

2. It condemns, in the same way, all others who deny that 
the vice of origin is sin ; and 

3. It condemns all who contend that man, by his own 
strength, as a rational being, can be justified before God ; and 
who thus diminish the glory of the merit of Christ, and of 
His benefits. 

Pelagius was a British monk, who flourished under the 
Emperors Arcadius, Theodosius, and Honorius. 
About the year 415 he began to teach unscriptural 
views in regard to the freedom of the human will. Violently 
opposing the Manichseans, who supposed a corruption in man 
which involved an essential evil in his very substance, he ran 
to the opposite extreme. 

The errors of Pelagius, which our fathers had in view in 
this solemn rejection of them in the Confession, are not diffi- 
cult to ascertain. Our confessors knew the views of Pelasrius 
mainly from the powerful confutation of them in the works of 
Augustine, who styled him the enemy of grace, and to these 
we must go to ascertain what they meant to condemn in con- 



446 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

demning Pelagianism. This is the more necessary, as there 
are modern writers who maintain that Pelagins was not the 
errorist Augustine supposed him to be, and that much of the 
controversy was really a war of terms. "We do not believe 
this theory to be correct ; we are satisfied that in all the main 
points, Augustine perfectly understood and fairly represented 
the position of Pelagius. But be this as it may, it cannot be 
disputed that, to understand the meaning of our Confession, 
we must take what was the accepted meaning of terms when 
it was framed. The characteristics we now give of Pelagian- 
ism are based mainly upon the statements of Augustine, and, 
for the most part, are literally translated from his very words. 

1. The Pelagians w denied that little children born after 
Adam contract from their very birth the contagion of the old 
death." The Augsburg Confession maintains, on the contrary, 
that " after the fall of Adam, all human beings, born in. the 
order of nature, are conceived and born in sin." 

2. " Little children are born without any fetter of original 
sin." They neither contract nor have it from their parents. 

3. " There is, therefore, no necessity that they, by a second 
or new birth, should be released from this." 

4. The Pelagians did not deny the duty of baptizing infants, 
nor did they dare to go so violently against the consciousness 
and faith of the entire Church as to deny that Baptism is a 
mean of regeneration. Those who deny this in our day are 
more Pelagian than Pelagius himself. The Pelagians con- 
tended that infants " are baptized, that by regeneration they 
may be admitted to the kingdom of God, being thereby trans- 
ferred from what is good to what is better, not that by that 
renewal they were set free from any evil of the old obligation." 

5. " If children were unbaptized, they would have, indeed, a 
place out of the kingdom of God, yet, nevertheless, a blessed 
and eternal life," in virtue of their personal innocence. 

6. " If Adam had not sinned he would, nevertheless, have 
died bodily, his death not being the desert of his sin, but 
arising from the condition of nature." Death is, therefore, 
not the penalty of sin. These illustrations are extracted from 
Augustine's Book on Heresies (chap, lxxxviii). 



THE ANABAPTISTS— ZWINGLI. 447 

In the Second Book of Augustine on Perseverance (chap, ii.), 
he says : " There are three points on which the Church Catho- 
lic mainly opposes the Pelagians. 

7. " One of these doctrines with which she opposes them is, 
that the grace of God is not given because of our merits. 

8. "The second is, that whatever may he the righteousness 
of a man, no one lives in this corruptible body without sins of 
some kind. 

9. " The third is, that man contracts liability by the sin of 
the first man, and would come under the fetter of condemna- 
tion were not the accountability which is contracted by gen- 
eration dissolved by regeneration." 

10. In the same book he attributes to the Pelagians the doc- 
trine that " Adam's sin injured no one but himself." 

The following statements, drawn from other reliable sources, 
will further illustrate the characteristics of Pelagianism : 

1. Pelagius originally asserted that man without grace can 
perform all the commands of God. Under the pressure of the 
urgency of his brethren he subsequently admitted that some 
aid of Divine grace is desirable, but only that we might more 
easily do God's commands. 

2. That concupiscence or desire, which is in man by nature, 
is good, and that the whole nature of man, even after the fall, 
remains entire and incorrupt, so that even in spiritual things 
he could do good, and fulfil the will of God. 

3. That sin is contracted entirely by example and imitation, 
not at all by propagation. 

The confessors, in the Antithesis, may have had reference, 
moreover, to the Anabaptists, who maintained : n. T he a™- 

1. " That sin was so taken away by the death of baptist8 - 
Christ that infants, under the New Testament, are born with- 
out sin, and are innocent, the servitude of death alone excepted ; 

2. "And, therefore, deny that infants are to be baptized, 
since they are born subject to no sin." 

It is not a matter of perfect agreement among the writers 
on our Confession, whether Zwingli is alluded to 
in the Antithesis. Our old standard writers are 
almost unanimous in believing that he was, at least, one of 



448 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

those alluded to. Such is the view, for example, of Ment- 
zer, Gerhard, Hoffmann, Carpzov, Walch, and Baumgarten. 
Among recent writers Ccelln* devotes a considerable part of 
a special treatise to the establishing of this point, and places it 
beyond all reasonable doubt. It is true that Zwingli signed the 
Articles of the Marburg Colloquy (1529), which were prepared 
by Luther, the fourth of which treats of Original Sin, but which 
shows, in common with the others, that Luther designed to make 
the way to harmony of view as easy as could be consistent with 
principle. In the Confession which Zwingli prepared to be pre- 
sented to Charles V. at the Diet of Worms, he says : " "Whether 
we will, or will not, we are forced to admit that original sin, as 
it is in the sons of Adam, is not properly sin, as has just been 
explained. For it is not a deed contrary to the law. It is, 
therefore, properly a disease and a condition." " Infants have 
not guilt, but have the punishment and penalty of guilt, to 
wit, a condition of servitude, and the state of convicts. If, 
therefore, it is right to call it guilt, because it bears the inflic- 
tions of guilt, I do not object to the term." That is he did not 
object to the term, provided it was clearly understood that the 
term meant nothing. In his book on Baptism, Zwingli says : 
" There is nothing in the children of believers, even before 
Baptism, which can properly be called sin." 

Alting, the distinguished Reformed divine who wrote an 
Exegesis, Logical and Theological, of the Augsburg Confes- 
sion, declares that it is a calumny to assert that Zwingli 
denied that original sin is truly sin, and says that he merely 
denied that it was actual sin. But if by denying that it is 
actual, he merely meant that it is not a sin committed by 
deed, he denied what no one affirms ; but if he meant that it 
was not a real sin, then he denied the very thing which, 
according to Alting, it is a calumny to charge upon him. 
Zwingli was a patriot, and as such we admire him, but he 
was, as compared with (Ecolampadius, not to mention Calvin, an 
exceedingly poor theologian. Justus Jonas says of him that 
he occupied himself with letters in the face of the anger of the 
Muses and of the unwillingness of Minerva — " Iratis Musis et 

* Confess. Melanchthonis et Zwinglii, etc., 1830. 



Z WING LI. 449 

in vita Minerva." It is not for their intrinsic value, but for his- 
torical reasons, that it is important to follow him in his views. 
He certainly did not hold, thoroughly and consistently, the doc- 
trine which is coached in the language of our Confession, that 
" original sin is truly sin." His fallacy is the ordinary one, that 
the character of sin is in the deed, not in the essence of moral 
nature, which originates the deed ; that sin cannot he, hut 
must always be done. In other words, he makes a real, not a 
merely phenomenal difference between sin in us, and sin by us ; 
the sin we have, and the sin we do. Every such distinction is 
Pelagian. Zwingli illustrates the condition, of the race as that 
of the children born to one who has been captured in war. 
" Those born of him are slaves, not by their fault, guilt, or 
crime, but by the condition which followed a fault, for the 
parent from whom they are born deserved this by his crime. 
The children have no guilt." All this naturally means that 
our race inherits the penalties of guilt, but not guilt itself. 
They are innocent, but are treated as guilty. In God's thoughts 
they are spotless ; in God's acts they are polluted. The provi- 
dence of God, and the actual course of His administration, are 
not a reflection of His judgment, but a perversion of it. Zwin- 
gli's illustration only aggravates the case. He takes one of 
the most atrocious acts of human cruelty towards enemies in 
war, and finds in it a parallel to God's dealings with man. 
His theory leaves the most difficult facts untouched, while it 
removes the only possible solution of them. Of all modes of 
looking at the subject, this seems to be the most confused and 
objectionable. It is simply self-conflicting Pelagianism. Pela- 
gianism denied both the effect and the cause. Zwingli leaves 
the effect and denies the cause. ' In Zwingli's letter to Urban 
Rhegius (1525), he says : " What could be clearer than that orig- 
inal sin is not sin, but a disease? What could be weaker and 
more alien to Scripture than to say that this calamity is alle- 
viated by the laver of Baptism, and is not merely a disease? " 
In the Book on Baptism, written the same year, he says: 
" We affirm that original sin is only that disease which we 
derive by inheritance. Therefore, original sin does not merit 
damnation. How can it be that that which is disease and 
29 



450 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

contagion merits the name of sin, or is sin in reality 
(re vera) ? " 

The language of the condemnatory clause also refers to 
the Pela^ianism of the Scholastics, and of many of 

IV. Other Pela- ° ' J 

gianizing teach- the Romish Church contemporary with the confes- 
ers " sors. The Romish Church praises Augustine, and 

follows Pelagius. 

It also, hy anticipation, condemns the Pelagianizing ten- 
dencies of the Council of Trent, and of the theologians who 
defended its decisions, among whom the Jesuits were pre- 
eminent. 

It also, in the same way, condemns the Socinian, Armin- 
ian, and Rationalistic Theology, and the schools which ap- 
proximate it. In short, all teaching which denies that the 
fault of origin is sin — all teaching that favors the idea that 
man by his own power of reason can be justified before God — 
all teaching that tends to diminish the glory of the merit and 
of the benefit of Christ, is here condemned. 

In fairly estimating much of the plausible sophistry by 
which Pelagianism is maintained, it is well to remember that 
even when actual sin takes place, the condition or state of sin 
must be antecedent to the act A being who has ever been 
holy, must cease to be holy, before he can will or do sin. This 
is the necessary order of succession and of conception, even if 
it be granted that these stages are synchronal. Not all real 
precessions are precessions in time. The doing originates in 
the willing, the willing presupposes the will as a faculty, the 
will as a faculty must be in a determinate condition antecedent 
to a determinate act, and the act takes its being and character 
from the condition. There can be no moral act without ante- 
cedent moral condition. The condition of the will may result 
in four ways : 

I. It may be concreate, as God establishes it : or, 

II. It may be affected by influences from without, — it may be 
tested, tried, or tempted in the nature of things, or by another 
will: or, 

III. It may result from a self -determining power in the will 
as a faculty : or, 



OTHER PELAGIANIZING TEACHERS. 451 

IV. It may be innate and connate. 

I. The first condition of the will of angels, and of Adam, 
was concreate ; it was holy and nntempted. 

II. Its second condition was that of the angels, tested in the 
nature of things by the essential character of virtue, which, on 
one side, is the negative of moral evil, the possibility of which 
evil is implied in the very denial of it, and by moral freedom, 
which is not continuously possible without choice. It is also 
the condition of Eve's will affected by the nature of things 
within and without her, and by the will of the serpent. It is 
also the condition of Adam's will tested by the nature of 
things, by the now corrupted will of his wife, and through her 
by the will of the serpent. So far as the fruit attracted Eve 
simply as pleasant to eat, and beautiful to look upon, the 
attraction was purely natural, and morally indifferent. The 
prohibitory command meant that the natural instincts, even of 
an unfallen creature, are not sufficient for the evolution of the 
highest moral character, but that to this character it is essen- 
tial that there shall be the voluntary and continuous con- 
formity of the will of the creature to the will of the Creator. 
Original righteousness is, per se, a condition of the will, and is 
antecedent to the first act of will. How a will, whose original 
condition is holy, can come to a sinful condition, as it involves 
an ultimate principle, cannot be grasped by man, yet, what- 
ever may furnish the occasion, the cause is the will itself: 
" The cause of sin is the will of the wicked " (causa peccati est 
voluntas malorum). " The perverted will (verkehrte Wille) work- 
eth sin . . . which will has turned itself from God to evil (zum 
Argen)." These words imply that sin the act, is the result of 
sin the condition. The condition of the will is the cause of the 
moral act as moral, and the perverted condition of the will the 
cause of the moral acts being perverted, that is, sinful. We 
reach the last point to which the mind of man can go, when 
we assert that in the self- determining power of a finite holy 
will lies the possibility of its becoming an unholy will. We 
may say that the finite is, in the nature of things, liable to the 
possibility of sin, that the positive good of freedom in the 

* Aug. Conf. Art. xix. 



452 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

creature involves the incidental evil of the power of abuse. 
It is easy to multiply these common-places of the argument. 
But none of these solutions bear upon the process of the change 
of condition. They may show that the change is possible, but 
they do not show hoiv it takes place. Nor, indeed, is a solution 
of the question of the how necessary here. The philosophy of the 
mode in no way affects the certainty that the moral condition of 
the will precedes and determines its acts. While a will is holy 
in condition, it is impossible that it should be unholy in act. The 
act is what the condition is. The act has no moral character 
except as it derives it from the condition of the will in which 
it originated. Things are not moral or immoral, only persons 
are. The essential sin never comes to being in the thought or 
act, but is, and must be, in being before there can be a sinful 
thought or sinful act. The thought or act is not the root of 
sin, but sin is the root of the thought and act. " Out of the 
heart proceed evil thoughts " — that is, evil thought is the out- 
going from an evil heart — act from condition. " Every imagi- 
nation of the thoughts of his heart was only evil." " Heart " 
implies will in condition, and to this the "imagination of 
the thoughts " is secondary and derivative. The act is deter- 
mined, the will is determining, and the self-existent cause of 
its particular determination, beyond which cause we cannot go, 
is its condition. Each of the derivative conditions supposes a 
preexistent one, and when we reach, as we soon must in this 
retrospection, the first condition, which is the sine qua non of 
the second, as the second is of the third, we reach a point at 
which we are forced to acknowledge that all actual sin, in some 
measure, results from a primary condition of the will. As in 
the order of nature there must be the process of thinking before 
the result of thought, and there must be mind before thinking, 
and a particular and specific condition of mind before the par- 
ticular and specific thinking which eventuates in the particu- 
lar and specific thought, so must there be the process of moral 
activity before the resulting moral act, and a faculty of will 
before the process of moral activity, and a particular and spe- 
cific condition of the faculty of will before the particular and 
specific willing which reveals itself in the particular moral act. 



OTHER PELAGIANIZING TEACHERS. 453 

When we say that the morality of an act is conditioned by the 
will, we mean simply that the character of the act is derived 
from the condition of the will. The sin is really in the condi- 
tion of the will. The sin done is but phenomenal to the real 
sin. In this respect all sin is essentially original ; and of the 
two extremes of statement, it would be more logical to assert 
that all sin is in its own nature original, and no sin in proper 
essence actual, than to assume that all sin is actual, and no sin 
original. Luther : * " Original sin, or sin of nature, sin of 
person, is the real cardinal sin (ITauptsiinde). Did it not exist, 
no actual sin would exist. It is not a sin which is done, like all 
other sins, but it is, it lives, and does all sins, and is the essential 
(wesentliche) sin." 

If this estimate of the bearing of the condition of will upon 
the controversy between the Church and Pelagianism be cor- 
rect, it is evident that the great question at issue is, In which 
of the four conditions enumerated is the will of man now ? 

I. It is Pelagian to assert that the primary condition of the 
will of man now is that of concreate holiness, as it was endowed 
in the beginning by God. u Every man is born in the same 
perfection wherein Adam was before his fall, save only the per- 
fection of age." 

■II. It is Pelagian to assert that the primary condition of the 
will is now made by influences from without. " Adam endam- 
aged . . his posterity only by his example, so far forth as they 
imitate him." " There is no original sin, or corruption of 
human nature." 

III. It is Pelagian to assert that the primary condition of the 
will now is, or results from, a self-determining exercise of the 
will. " Man of himself is able to resist the strongest tempta- 
tions." " The well-using of free-will and of natural powers is 
the cause of predestination." 

IV. It is Pelagian to deny that the present condition of our 
will is inherited by natural descent : " Adam by his sin en- 
damaged only himself," or, to assert that though our pres- 
ent condition of will may be connate, yet that this connate 
condition is either 

* Hauss-postilla on the Gospel for New Year. 



454 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

1. Like that of concreate holiness; or, 

2. Like that of Adam when his condition was that of 
tempted holiness, with the natural power of successful resist- 
ance ; or, 

3. That of self-determination, which still freely exercises 
itself; or, 

4. That of non-moral passivity, neutrality, or indifference. 
Over against these, the Scripture view is : 

I. That man's will is not in a condition of concreate holiness, 
but has lost that condition. 

II. That the positive element which affects its condition is 
not external, as example, education, or temptation, but internal, 
corrupt desire, or concupiscence. 

III. That its condition allows of no self -determining power 
in the sphere of grace. 

IV. That this condition is connate, is properly called sin, is 
really sin, justly liable in its own nature to the penalties of 
sin ; that without the work of grace wrought, it would have 
brought eternal death to the whole race, and does now bring 
death to all to whom that work of grace is not, either ordi- 
narily or extraordinarily, applied by the Holy Ghost. 

Faithful to these doctrines, and over against all the tenden- 
cies which conflict with them, our Confession, both in its Thesis 
and Antithesis, holds forth the truth of the exceeding sinful- 
ness and the utter helplessness of man's nature, the goodness 
of God, the all - sufficiency of Christ, and the freeness of 
justification. 

Looking at original sin as God's Word and our Church 
teaches us to regard it, we shall 

See its true character, and deplore the misery it has 
wrought. 

We shall go to Christ, the great Physician, to be healed 
of it, and to the Holy Spirit, who, by His own means, Bap- 
tism and the Word, applies for Christ the remedy we need ; 
taking of the things that are Christ's, and making them ours. 

We shall be led to maintain a continual struggle against 
it ; we shall watch, pray, and strive, knowing that through 
grace we are already redeemed from its curse ; that by the 



OTHER PELAGIANIZING TEACHERS. 455 

same grace we shall be more and more redeemed here from 
its power, and at last be wholly purged from it, and shall 
form a part of that Church, loved and glorious, which shall 
show no spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but shall stand 
before her Lord holy and without blemish. 

And now, in the language in which the incomparable Ger- 
hard closes his discussion of original sin, let our words be: 
u To Him that hath died for us, that sin might die in us ; to 
Him who came that He might destroy the works of the Devil, 
and might restore to us the blessings lost by the Fall ; to Jesus 
Christ our Saviour, be praise, honor, and glory, world without 
end. Amen ! " 



THE PEKSON OF OUR LORD AND HIS SACRAMENTAL 

PRESENCE. — THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN AND 

THE REFORMED DOCTRINES COMPARED.* 

(AUGSBURG CONFESSION. ART. III.) 



IN the January number of the Bibliotheca Sacra, for 1863, 
the opening article is a very elaborate one, from the pen of 
i.Dr.Gerhart's ^ ev * ^. V. Gerhart, D. D. Its subject is the " Ger- 
Articie. m an Reformed Church." It was read at the time 

with special interest, as the Puritanism of New England, 
which has been supposed to carry out the Reformed principles 
• to their furthest extreme, and the German Reformed Church, 
in which those principles were more modified and subdued 
than in any unquestionably Calvinistic Church, were brought 

*Brentius: DePersonali Unione. Tubing. 1561. 4to. ; Sent, de Lib. Bullinger. 
Tubing. 1561. 4to.; DeMajestat. Domin. nostri. Frankf. 1562. 4to.; Recogn. proph. 
et Apostol. doctrin. Tubing. 1564. 4to. — Bull : Defens. Fid. Nicaense. Oxon. 1688. 
4to. — Calixtus : F. U. Ref. ad Calov. Theses. (Be Christo. 67.) Helmst. 1668. 
4to. — Calovius: Harmonia Calixt. Haeret. (De Christo. 938.) Witteb. 1655. 4to.; 
Colleg. Disput. Controv. (Be Christo. 62.) Witteb. 1667. 4to. — Chemnitz : Be 
duab. nat in Christo. Jena. 1570. 8vo. — Borner : Entw. gesch. d. L. v. Person 
Christi. 1845-56. 8vo. — Gess : Bie L. v. d. Person Christi. 1856. 8vo. — Htjn- 
nius Aeg.: Be Persona Christi. Frankf. 1597. 12mo. — Liebner: Christol. 1849. — 
Logscher C: Cons. Orthod. de Christo. Wittenb. 1699. 4to. — Meisner : Be Artie. 
Fid. Fundament, (p. 339.) Wittenb. 1675. 4to. — Osiander: Informat. Theologica. 
Tubing. 1620. — Sartorius : B. L. v. Christi Person u. Werk. 1845. — Schneck- 
enburger : Zur Kirchl. Christol. 1848. — Strauch : Consens. Repetit. Vindicat. 
(190.) Witteb. 1668. — Thomastus : Christi Person u. Werk. 1857. — Thummius : 
Majestas Jesu Christi. Tubing. 1621. 4to.; Be maj. Chr. doctr. Repetit. Tubing. 
1624. 4t'o.— Weber: Boctr. Bib. de nat. Corp. Christi. Halis. 1825. 4to.; Be nat- 
nra Christi. Halis. 1825. 4to. — Wolf: Eutychianism. Lutheranor. Wittenb. 
1680. 4to. 

456 



DIFFERENCE OF LUTH. AND CALV. SYSTEMS. 457 

into apparently intimate fellowship by Dr. Schaff's temporary 
engagement at Andover. The article of Dr. Gerhart is a very 
able one, and we rejoiced that so full, and, in many respects, 
so satisfactory an exhibition of the doctrines, usages, and his- 
tory of the German Reformed Church had been given. At 
the time, however, we entered a kind, but most decided pro- 
test in general, against what Dr. Gerhart believed it neces- 
sary to say in regard to the Lutheran Church, in exhibiting 
the contrast between her doctrines and those of his own 
communion. 

It is our desire, in the Dissertation which we now submit to 
the reader, to place in a more permanent shape some facts 
which were then drawn together, bearing upon the great doc- 
trines of our Lord's person and presence. They are doctrines 
of the profoundest importance in themselves, and derive addi- 
tional interest from the fact that on them, primarily, the great 
division took place between the two Reformatory movements 
of the Sixteenth Century. It is a division which has been fruit- 
ful in unspeakable mischiefs, and which, more than all other 
causes, has made the struggle against Rome prolonged and 
dubious. The responsibility of the division is a serious one, 
and rests upon those who were in the wrong upon the great 
questions themselves. 

" The differences of Zwingli and Luther in temperament, 
psychological organization, moral character, edu- n Differ 
cation, and political as well as social relations," do of ^ e Lutheran 

. . t . . . n . . , . and Calvinistic 

not, in our judgment, satisfactorily account, as systems, its 
Dr. Gerhart supposes, for their divergence in the Souice - 
Reformation. The root of the divergence lies in the very 
nature of Christianity ; and there can be no satisfactory solu- 
tion of the differences between the Zwinglio-Calvinistic, and 
the Lutheran Reformations, and the Churches which were 
established upon them, except this, that the one accepted the 
true, the other a mistaken meaning of God's Word, on certain 
points. That is, and will forever remain, the real question 
between them. 

We have no less serious objection to Dr. Gerhart's state- 
ment of the Lutheran doctrine of the presence of Christ in 



458 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the Lord's Supper. He states a number of important respects, 
in which he supposes the two Churches to agree touching 
Christ's sacramental presence. He then goes on to say : " But 
they differ as to the mode." The inference here might seem 
to be natural that the Churches asree as to a fact, 

III. Doctrine . . ° ^ » 

of Christ's Pies- but not as to its philosophy, but this representation 
is inadequate, for the point of difference is as to 
the fact, and, indeed, in a very important sense, not at all as 
to the mode. Oar controversy with Socinians is not as to the 
mode of the Trinity, for we confess that we cannot explain how 
the Trinal Unity exists, but it is as to the fact, whether there 
be a true Trinity in Unity, and not a mere ideal distinction. 
So in regard to the presence of Christ, our dispute is not as to 
how he is present, which, like the whole doctrine of His person, 
is an inscrutable mystery, but as to whether there be a true, 
not an ideal presence. It is the essence of the doctrine, not its 
form, which divides us from the Reformed. Let them satisfy 
us that they accept the /ad, and we shall have no quarrel as to 
the philosophy of the mode, so far as the question of mode 
is separable from that of fact. Let us agree as to the kind of 
presence, its objective reality ; let us agree that the true body 
and true blood of Christ are truly present, so that the bread is 
the communicating medium of the one, the cup of the other, 
and use these terms in- one and the same sense, and we can 
well submit the mode of the mystery to the Omniscient, to 
whom alone mode is comprehensible. 

The next statement of Dr. Gerhart seems to us entirely a 
iv. The lu- mistaken one. He says : " The Lutheran Church 

theran Church ^ 

teaches no Local teaches that the veritable flesh and blood of Christ 
Christ n< are locally present, being in, with, and under the 

consecrated bread and wine." On the contrary, the Lutheran 
Church denies that there is a local presence of Christ's body 
and blood, and if such a presence be meant, she would deny 
that there is any presence of them "in, with, and under the 
consecrated elements." Between us and the Reformed there 
never has been, there never can be, a controversy on so simple 
a point as this. The Lutheran Church maintains that there 
is a true presence of Christ's human nature, which is neither 



LOCAL PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 459 

local nor determinate. The body of Christ which, in its own 
nature, is determinately in heaven, and is thus present nowhere 
else, nor will be thus present on earth till His second coming, 
has also another presence, diverse from the determinate, yet no 
less true. It is present through that Divine nature into whose 
personality it has been received, and with which it has formed 
an inseparable union, whose lowest demand is the co-presence 
of the two parts. If there be a place where the human nature 
of Christ is not united with the second person of the Trinity, 
then there is a place where the second person of the Trinity is 
not incarnate. If this be granted, then the whole second per- 
son of the Trinity is unincarnate, for where God is, He is not 
in part (for He is indivisible), but He is entire. Then the 
second person of the Trinity is either not incarnate at all, or 
He is both incarnate and unincarnate ; or there are two second 
persons of the Trinity, with one of whom the human nature 
of Christ is one person, the extent of the incarnation being 
commensurate with that of our Saviour's body in heaven, and 
the other second person of the Trinity omnipresent, but not 
incarnate, all of which suppositions are absurd, and yet one or 
other of them must be accepted, if the Lutheran doctrine 
be denied. The truth is, that when we admit the personal 
union of the human nature of Christ with a divine nature, we 
have already admitted the fact, in which the mystery of 
Christ's Sacramental presence is absorbed. The whole Divine 
person of Christ is confessedly present at the Supper, but the 
human nature has been taken into that personality, and forms 
one person with it ; hence the one person of Christ, consisting 
of the two natures, is present, and of necessity the two natures 
which constitute it are present. 

As the divine nature, without extension, expansion, or 
locality, has a presence which is no less true than the local 
presence, from which it is wholly diverse, so does it render 
present the human, which is now in one personality with it, — 
renders it present without extension, expansion, or locality ; 
for, as is the presence which the divine has, so must be the 
presence of the human which it makes. If we are asked what 
is the kind of the presence of the Divine nature of Christ, we 



460 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

reply, it is a true, illocal presence, after the manner of an 
infinite Spirit, incomprehensible to ns ; and if we are asked, 
what is the kind of the presence of the human nature of 
Christ, we reply, it is a true illocal presence after the manner 
in which an infinite Spirit renders present a human nature 
which is one person with it — a manner incomprehensible to 
us. ^N"or is the idea at all that the human nature of Christ 
exercises through anything inherent in it this omnipresence, 
for it remains, in itself, forever a true human nature, and is 
omnipresent only through the divine. The physical eye sees 
through the essential power of the soul, and the soul sees by 
the eye as its organ. So are the powers of the human Christ 
conditioned by the essential attributes of the Godhead, and the 
Godhead works through the Manhood of Christ as its organ. 
The eye never becomes spirit, and the soul never becomes mat- 
ter. So in Christ the divine forever is divine, the human forever 
human, without absorption or confusion, though the human 
acts through the divine, and the divine acts by the human. 

The Lutheran Church does not hold to any local presence 
of the body of Christ in, or any local conjunction of the body 
of Christ with, or any local administration of the body of Christ 
under the bread, or of His blood in, with, and under the wine. 
The sphere of the reality of the sacramental mystery is not of 
this world. The sphere in which our Lord sacramentally 
applies His redeeming work is that in which He made it. 
That sphere was indeed on this earth, but not of it. Our Lord 
made His propitiatory sacrifice ; it was a true and real sacri- 
fice, but its truth and reality are not of the nature of this 
earth, nor comprehensible by any of its modes of apprehension. 
Judged by the world's standards, the blood of the Lamb of 
God has no more efficacy than the blood of animal sacrifices. 
But there is a sphere of reality in whiJi the shedding of 
Christ's blood was an actual ransom for the sins of the race. 
The atonement is of the invisible world, and hence incompre- 
hensible to us, who are of the visible. In the same order of 
verities is the sacramental presence which applies what the 
atonement provided. It is a most true presence, but not in 
the sphere of this life. If presence means location ; if sacra- 



IS SACRAMENTAL COMMUNION ORAL? 461 

mental is a convertible term with fleshly, earthly, natural, (as 
the opposite of spiritual,) then the Lutheran Church would 
deny that there is a sacramental presence of Christ. But a 
presence of the whole person of Christ, of the divine by its 
inherent omnipresence, and of the human through the divine 
— a presence, not ideal or feigned, but most true ; not fleshly, 
but spiritual ; not after the manner of this earth, but of the 
unseen world; not natural, but supernatural — this presence 
the Lutheran Church maintains, and, God helping her, will 
maintain to the end of time. 

Dr. Gerhart goes on to say that the Lutheran Church holds 
that " communicants, unbelievers as well as belie v- v T 

' V . Is sacra- 

ers, partake of the human nature of Christ with mental commu- 
the mouth ; the one class of persons eating and 
drinking damnation to themselves, not discerning the Lord's 
body, and the other class eating and drinking unto sanctifi- 
cation and everlasting life." We have looked a little into 
Lutheran theology, and must confess that the expression, 
" partaking of the human nature of Christ with the mouth," is 
one which we never met, and which is to us incomprehensible. 
K"o such phrase occurs in the citations made from our Confes- 
sions by Dr. Gerhart, and no such phrase, we think, can be 
found in them. If there be such a phrase in any of our 
approved theologians, we should have been glad to have Dr. 
Gerhart quote it. But waiving this, does the Lutheran 
Church, as a whole, present in her Confession the words " w T ith 
the mouth," as an essential part of the definition of the sacra- 
mental reception of the body and blood of Christ? We reply, 
She does not. The Augsburg Confession, the only distinctive 
symbol universally recognized in the Lutheran Church, has 
no such expression, although it was in part prepared to show 
that our Church was free from the Zwinglian error on this 
very question of the sacramental presence. The Apology, 
which amplifies and defends the disputed statements of the 
Confession, has not these words. The Smaller Catechism has 
no such words. The Larger Catechism has no such words. 
The Smalcald Articles have no such words. In Luther's Four- 
teen Articles drawn up at the Colloquy at Marburg, for the 



462 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

express and sole purpose of comparing the conflicting views of 
Zwinglians and Lutherans, not a word is said of a reception 
"by the mouth." The same is true of the Wittenberg Con- 
cord, drawn up with like aims. The fact is, therefore, that 
the defining term " by the mouth," cannot be demonstrated 
to be an essential part of the Lutheran Confessional statement. 
Entire national bodies of Lutherans have existed for centu- 
ries, and now exist, who have no such expression in their 
Confessions. 

It is true that the Formula of Concord, which appeared 
thirty-four years after Luther's death, does use and defend the 
term, and that this Formula, not without good reason, has 
been generally received in the Germanic Churches, and either 
formally or virtually by an immense majority of all our 
Churches, and that it is confessedly a just and noble scientific 
development of the Lutheran faith. But when the Formula 
and our theologians speak of a reception by the mouth, they 
speak, as we may, of the reception of the Holy Spirit in, with, 
and under the preached Word, by the ear, not meaning at all 
that there is, or can be, a physical grasping of the Holy Spirit 
by the organ of sense, but that the Word is the medium, 
through which His presence is operative, and that the Word, 
and by Divine appointment, the Holy Spirit, in, with, and 
under the Word, is received by the soul through the ear. 
Our Gerhard, of whom the Professor of Franklin and Mar- 
shall College is almost a namesake, defines the words in ques- 
tion in this way : " The sacramental eating of the body of 
Christ is none other than with the mouth to receive the euchar- 
istic ' bread, which is the communion of the body of Christ,' 
(1 Cor. x. 16). This sacramental eating is said to be spiritual, 
because the body of Christ is not eaten naturally, and because 
the mode of eating, like the presence itself, is neither natural, 
carnal., physical, nor local, but supernatural, divine, mystical, 
heavenly, and spiritual. . . The Word of God is the food of 
the soul, and yet is received by the bodily ear." If, indeed, 
there be such a thing as a Sacrament, a something distinct 
from language, as means of grace, it must be received in some 
other way than by hearing, or sight, or in the mode in which 



WHO RECEIVE CHRIST SACRAMENTALLY? 463 

language addresses itself to them. If Baptism be a sacrament ; 
if the water, by its conjunction with the "Word, becomes also 
bearer of the grace which the Holy Spirit in His substantial 
presence, in, with, and under both water and Word, confers, 
then is the reception of the Holy Spirit mediated, in some 
sense, through the body which is touched by the water, as 
well as through the ear, which hears the Word. If, in the 
Lord's Supper, the distinctive element is something to be 
received by the mouth, then the mouth acts some essential 
part in the reception of the thing offered in the Supper, be 
that thing what it may. Any theory which rejects the idea 
of oral reception in every sense, really denies the whole sacra- 
mental character of the Lord's Supper. If the bread commu- 
nicates the body of Christ, and the bread is to be received 
orally, the result is inevitable that the sacramental eating is 
with the mouth. Nor is this so isolated a marvel. The Holy 
Ghost is personally and substantially present in, with, and 
under the Word. When the blind, therefore, as they can and 
sometimes do, read the Word by pressing the lips, instead of 
the fingers, to the raised characters, there is, in some sense, an 
oral reception of the Holy Ghost. 

As to the doctrine that believers and unbelievers partake 
sacramentally, though believers alone partake sav- VT Who 
ingly, it seems to us that any doctrine which con- ceh-e Christ sac- 
cedes a responsibility in man, and an impartiality 
in God, must suppose that the sacrament offers to all who 
receive it the same thing ; the difference in the result being 
made by the faith or unbelief of the recipient. 

Dr. Gerhart, indeed, himself says, that the Reformed Con- 
fessions deny, " That the objective efficacy of the sacrament 
depends on the faith, or any frame of mind of the communi- 
cant." These words, as we understand them, involve the doc- 
trine that there is a positive object in the sacrament, which 
exists apart from the faith of the communicant. If the Doctor 
uses the word " efficacy " in its ordinary acceptation, he must 
either mean " efficacy " for good, in which case he goes beyond 
the Lutheran doctrine, and falls into the opus operatum of 
Rome; or he must mean " efficacy " for evil or judgment, in 



464 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the case of the unbelieving, in which case he practically takes 
ground with the Lutheran Church on this point. Nor does it 
seem to us that this doctrine of our Church can be success- 
fully denied. When the Word of God is preached, the sinner 
who is melted to penitence, and the sinner who hardens him- 
self against it, receive precisely the same G-ospel. What the 
ear receives in each case is exactly the same. The Gospel is 
not made Gospel by our faith, nor made mere sound by our 
unbelief. Our unbelief cannot make the promise of God cease 
to be His promise. Faith accepts, and unbelief rejects what 
is : the one no more unmakes it than the other makes it. The 
responsibility of the hardened hearer turns upon this very thing, 
that receiving God's Word he does not discern it, but treats 
it as if it were man's word ; and so in the Lutheran view the 
criminality of the unworthy communicant is preeminently 
this, that partaking of that bread, which is the communion 
of Christ's body, he does not " discern the body of the Lord." 
If the words "partake " or " receive " are so used as to imply 
a salutary acceptance with the heart, then our Church would 
say that believers alone partake in the Lord's Supper. But 
faith must have an object, and the object of faith can always, 
in the nature of things, be an object of unbelief. Our Church 
maintains that the object on which the faith of the worthy 
communicant, and the unbelief of the unworthy communicant, 
rest, is the same. Sacramentally they receive the same thing, 
which efficaciously the believer alone receives, and the differ- 
ence at the table of the Lord originates, not in the arrange- 
ment of God, but in the state of the recipient. Bread is bread, 
although the diseased state of the man who receives it may 
make it act like a poison. The presence of Christ is an abso- 
lute verity, and is no more affected in its reality by our unbe- 
lief, than a wedge of gold ceases to be gold because it may be 
neglected or spurned as if it were brass. A man may throw 
away the wedge of gold, but it is no less gold, and has none the 
less truly been placed in his hand. 

Dr. Gerhart then goes on to say, contrasting the doctrines 
of the two communions : " The Reformed Church, on the con- 
trary, teaches that the divine-human Saviour is present, not 



DOCTRINES OF THE LORD'S SUPPER. 465 

locally, nor carnally, but spiritually." To this we reply that 
it is not on the contrary. The Lutheran Church repeatedly 
and unequivocally has denied all local or carnal presence of 
Christ's body, and has affirmed that, as antagonistic to any 
such conceptions, His presence is "spiritual." When the 
word " spiritual," however, is used as the opposite V ir. The r 6 - 
of " true " and meaus that His presence is one which formed and Lu " 

x # m theran doctrines 

rests on our intellectual operation, or on our faith, of the Lord's sup- 
and not on the nature of His own person, then our pen 
Church denies that it is "spiritual." Dr. Gerhart, however, 
defines the words differently from either of these meanings. 
He says: " Not locally, nor carnally, but spiritually ; that is, 
by the Holy Ghost." The Reformed Church maintains that 
Christ's sacramental presence is mediated by the Holy Spirit. 
The Lutheran Church, on the contrary, maintains that it is 
through the divine nature in Christ's own person, and that 
Christ is present, not because the Holy Spirit enables Him to 
be present to faith, though absent in reality, but because, in 
His own inseparable person, the Godhead is of itself present, 
and the humanity is rendered present through the Godhead. 
The Trinity is indeed indivisible, and the Holy Spirit is pres- 
ent at the Supper. But the persons of trie Trinity have their 
distinctive work. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to illu- 
mine the mind and kiudle the heart to the reception of the 
great gift which the glorious Saviour, present in His own per- 
son, offers to the soul. The whole Christ is truly present 
after the incomprehensible manner of that world of mystery 
and of verity in which He reigns. He applies, to faith, at His 
table, the redemption which he wrought upon the cross. 
Through His body and blood He purchased our salvation — 
truly and supernaturally ; through His body and blood He 
applies salvation — truly and supernaturally. In Christ's Sup- 
per, as in His person, the human and natural is the organ of 
the divine and supernatural which glorifies it. As is the 
redemption, so is its sacrament. The foundation of both is the 
same, and lies forever inapproachable by man, in the lowest 
depth of the eternal mind. In the redemption, nature furnished 
the outward organ of the divine, in the frail body and the 

30 



466 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

flowing blood of our crucified Lord. Through this organ an 
infinite ransom was accomplished. In the Supper, the organ 
of the redemption becomes the organ of its application. "With 
an artlessness which heightens its grandeur, this redemption, 
which forever centres in Christ's sacred and undivided person, 
veils its supernatural powers under the simplest elements which 
sustain and revive our natural life. But faith none the less 
clearly sees that the bread which we break is the communion 
of Christ's body, and that the cup of blessing which we bless 
is the communion of His blood. 

In illustrating and defending the doctrine of God's Word, 
we shall quote with some fulness from Chemnitz as illustrative 
of the Lutheran doctrine of the person of Christ, as bearing on 
His presence in the Lord's Supper, and with reference to 
various misapprehensions of it. We desire to present the views 
of Chemnitz, the greatest of the dogmatic theologians of the 
Chemnitz on Sixteenth Century, not because of the weight which 
the personal pres- hj s name bears, nor merely because of the exquisite 

ence of Christ. , . . „ , . , ,. . 

combination 01 sound judgment, erudition, pro- 
found thought and clear reasoning, with great mildness, and a 
simple and scriptural piety which characterized him, but 
mainly for two reasons. First, because he bore so distinguished 
a part in the preparation of the Formula of Concord, and in the 
subsequent masterly defence of it ; and secondly, because he was 
of the school which, in order to narrow the ground of contro- 
versy, had preferred waiving the question of a general omnipres- 
ence of Christ in His human nature, and confining attention 
mainly to that presence in which His people are most directly 
interested, His presence with His Church — everywhere and at 
all times, and especially at His Supper. 

" The words in the History of the Ascension are rightly 

i. on the as- taken in their simples literal, and natural significa- 

cension and Re- ^ on . f or w j ien Christ ascended, according to the 

turn of Christ. ' # ' # ' & 

i. The Ascension description of the Evangelists, He was, by a visible 
strictly Literal. mo ^ on? lifted up on high, in a circumscribed form 
and location of the body, so that, by a visible interval, He 
departed further and further from the presence of the Apos- 



CHRIST'S ASCENSION. 467 

ties. For such is the force of the words * to go up,' ' to be 
taken up,' ' to be parted from them,' ' to be received up,' which 
are employed in describing His ascension." 

" That visible, manifest, bodily, or sensible intercourse or 
sojourning, therefore, which, in a circumscribed '^. The Ascen- 
and visible form He had hitherto had with His ^3^™^^ 
disciples on earth, He has by His ascension with- Christ from U3 - 
drawn from us who are on earth, so that in that form, and in 
that mode of presence, He does not now have intercourse with us in 
the world." " But (in the form and mode of presence just de- 
scribed) thus He appears in heaven to the angels and saints " 
(Rev. xiv. 1). " In that form also in which the Apostles saw 
Him ascend, He shall descend from heaven, in glory, to the judg- 
ment (Acts i. 2 ; iv. 16), in a visible and circumscribed form." 

" So far, (that is, on all the points above specified,) as I con- 
ceive, we (Beza and Chemnitz) agree, but the point 3 Points of 
to be decided is this : Whether from what is true Agreement and 

, . , . _ of Disagreement 

in a certain respect [secundum quid), an inference witu the Re- 
may be drawn which involves every respect — formed, state of 

x the question as 

whether from the admission of a fact in one and a regards the reia- 
certain sense, an inference may be drawn as to the tion of Chnst ' s 

7 ^ Ascension to His 

same fact in another and a different sense — whether personal pres- 
because Christ, in a visible form, and a mode of pres- ence ' 
ence perceptible by human senses, does not in His body, locally, have 
intercourse with His Church on earth, we are, therefore, to 
infer that in no mode is He present with His Church on earth 
according to the human nature He has assumed — whether 
Christ neither knows, nor can have any other than that local, 
visible, and sensible mode by which He can perform what the 
words of His testament declare." These words show clearly 
why the famous expression of Beza, " that the body of Christ 
is as remote from the Supper as the highest heaven is from 
earth," gave such offence. It was not that our theologians 
denied it, in a certain respect {secundum quid), but that Beza 
denied it absolutely in every respect (simpliciter). Hence the 
Formula Concordise (672), commenting on this language, ex- 
presses the offensive point of it thus : " That Christ is, in such 
manner (ita, als) received in heaven, as to be circumscribed and 



468 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

shut up in it, so that in no mode whatever (nullo prorsus modo — 
keinerlei Weise) He can or will be present with us on earth in 
His human nature." 

" I cannot see the connection between the premises and the 

4 The sophism conclusion, when, though Christ says He will be 

involved in the present in the use of His Supper, it is argued, that 

Denial of Christ's , , . , -i • ,^ , -i • -in 

personal Pres- because this cannot he in any way ot this world, 

ence, because of / -P Qr fa ftfe mo d e ChHst h(lS left the WOrld, AND IS NO 
His ascension. w . 

longer in the world) therefore He is present there 
in no other mode, though the words declare He is." "A com- 
parison of the parts in John xvi. will show in what sense 
Christ has left the world, for Tie says (18): 'I came forth 
from the Father, and am come into the world,' not that He had 
left the Father, for He says (ch. viii. 29) : ' He that sent me is 
with me : the Father hath not left me alone,' or as if the Father, 
who fills heaven and earth, were not in this world, but because 
He had humbled Himself, though He was in the form of God. 
From the antithesis, therefore, we may rightfully gather what 
Christ means when he says : ' Again I leave the world and go 
to the Father,' to wit, that after His work was finished, His 
humiliation removed, all infirmity and sorrow laid aside, He 
would be exalted to the highest glory and power of the Father, 
and would be transferred from the mode of this world's life to 
a heavenly mode of existence with the Father. This explana- 
tion John himself gives (ch. xiii. 1-3), for when he tells us : 
4 Jesus knew that His hour was come that He should depart 
out of this world unto the Father,' he subjoins this explana- 
tion : ' Knowing that the Fatber had given all things into His 
hands, and that He was come from God, and went to God.' 
ISTay, Christ Himself gives us the explanation of these declara- 
tions of His. For when by His Resurrection He had passed 
into another mode of existence, though He offered Himself 
then present to be seen and touched by the Apostles, yet He 
says (Luke xxiv. 44), ' These are the words which I spake unto 
you, while I was yet with you.' He shows, therefore, that 
the sayings were already fulfilled, ('Yet a little while I am 
with you,' ' I am no more in the world,' ' I leave the world,') 
and that they are to be understood, not of an absence in every 



TEE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 469 

sense (omni modo), but of another mode of life, of intercourse, 
and of presence." 

"Though, therefore, this presence be not in any way of this 
world, which we can understand or comprehend, g Geueral con . 
yet He can fulfil (the sacramental promise) in elusion. 
another mode, though it be incomprehensible to us. 'Christ 
. . is united and conjoined with us who are yet on earth, 
not indeed in any gross mode of this life, a mode which would 
make Him an object of touch (atting entice), but in a supernatural 
and heavenly mode, yet truly.' ' The Article of the Ascen- 
sion, therefore, not only does not overthrow the simple arid 
'genuine sense of the institution (of the Lord's Supper), but, on 
the contrary, rightly explained, confirms the verity of it.' " 

" We believe and confess that the Son of God assumed the 
true and entire substance of a human nature, with IL The Body 
those essential properties which naturally accom- of Christ. 
pany and follow the substance of human nature. . . That sub- 
stance, with its essential properties, He retained also after His 
Resurrection, though its infirmities were laid aside, which also, 
though He is in glory, we believe He retains true and entire. 
And according to those natural or essential properties, and on 
account of the natural mode of a true body, we have such say- 
ings in Scripture as these : ' I was not there,' ' He is not 
here, but is risen.' According also to those properties, and 
agreeably to the mode of a true body, Luther, with Augustine 
and the Scholastics, believes that the body of Christ is now in 
glory, in that circumscribed form in which He showed Him- 
self to Paul and Stephen, in which also He shall return to 
judgment, and in which He is seen in heaven by angels .and 
saints." 

" When Christ says : ' Where two or three are gathered 
together in my name, there am I in the midst of m . The Pres- 
them ' we ri^htlv understand the promise of the ence of Christ - 

' /• tt.< , Tj I- The promise 

whole Christ, or of His entire 'person, tor He says f Christ's P res- 
that He, in whose name we are gathered, is present. enC9 - 
But no one will dare to say that the name of Christ is His 
divine nature alone. It is His whole person, in each nature, 
and according to each nature, and, indeed, in His office of 



470 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Mediator and Saviour, for it is admitted that when the Scrip- 
ture says a thing is done in the name of Christ, it denotes 
that this pertains to the person according to each nature." 

" In regard to that presence of the whole Christ in the 
Church, there are special promises in the "Word of God. For 
(Matt, xxviii.) when Jesus, after His Resurrection, had appeared 
upon a mountain in Galilee to more than five hundred of His 
disciples at once, when He was before them, not in His divinity 
alone, but whole and entire, in both natures, so that by that 
very presence on that mountain He gave the demonstration 
and the conlirmation of the fact that He had risen in His true 
body, so that His disciples, when they saw Him, worshipped 
him, and when some doubted, as if there were a spirit, or a 
spectre appearing in an outward and visible form, Jesus 
approached and spake to them — all which, beyond contro- 
versy, pertains to the human nature which Christ assumed. 
And when He gave the command to His disciples to gather a 
Church throughout the whole world, He added the promise, 
' Lo ! I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.' 
That promise, therefore, is rightly understood of the whole 
Christ, God and man, according to both natures ; for He who 
was then and there before them, promised His presence with His 
Church through all time — but He was then present, not in His 
Divinity alone, but showing that even after His Resurrection, 
in glory, he had and retained the verity of His human nature. 
And He who was then entire in each nature, by a sure word 
and peculiar promise, says : 'I am present with you ' (wherever, 
to wit, my Church shall be, throughout the whole world). 
And there is no reason whatever, in that most sweet promise 
of the presence of Christ in His Church, why we should sepa- 
rate and exclude that nature which was assumed by Him in 
which He is our kinsman and brother, and by which we ' are 
members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones/ (Eph. v. 
30,) since He, in giving the promise, marks and describes, by 
many circumstances, the nature he assumed, as we have 
shown from the text." 

With similar conclusiveness does Chemnitz reason in regard 
to other passages, as, for instance, Mark xvi. 19, 20. " i The 



CHE 1ST' S PRESENCE. 471 

Lord . . sat on the right hand of God, and they went forth 
and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and 
confirming the word with signs following.' They preached 
everywhere, the Lord working with them : therefore the Lord 
Jesus worked with them everywhere." So, also, in regard to 
the words : " The Son of man which is in heaven " (Johniii. 13). 
" That Christ, according to His divine nature, is present with 
His Church, and with all other creatures, is not 

' . .... 2. The Point of 

questioned. The divine essence is infinite, immeas- Agreement as to 
urahle, illimitable, uncompounded : the operation ^ f s ^ t s u f e r e s f ' 
of God proceeds from His power. . . Wherefore Divine omnipres- 
it is usual and right to say that God is everywhere, 
or in all things essentially, or by essence, presence, and power, 
without mingling, circumscription, distraction, or mutation 
of Himself. Because the divine nature is incapable of parti- 
tion, not having part separate from part, it is total totally, 
wherever it exists ; nor is there part in part, but it is total in 
all, total in each, and total above all, as Damascenus says. And 
the old writers say : The divine essence is within all, yet is not 
included — it is out of all, yet not excluded." Luther, in a 
passage so closely parallel with the one we have just quoted 
from Chemnitz, that we cannot forbear placing the two side by 
side, says : " God is not a Being with extension, of whom we 
can say, He is so high, so broad, so thick ; but He is a super- 
natural, unsearchable Being, who is total and entire in every 
granule, and yet in, and over, and apart from all creatures. . . 
Nothing is so small that God is not smaller, nothing so great 
that God is not greater. . . He is, in a word, an ineiFable 
Being, over and apart from all that we can speak or think." 

" Since, however, in the person of Christ, there subsists 
not only the divine, but the human nature, the 3. The mooted 
question at present concerns the latter, to wit, chTiH's^pre^ 
where and how the person of Christ, according to ence - 
both natures, or in His assumed human nature, is present — or 
wills, and is able to be present ? " 

After dwelling on Christ's presence at the Supper, Chemnitz 
says: 

" But not alone in that place — not at that time alone when 



472 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the Supper of the Lord is observed in the public assembly of the 
Church, is the whole Christ, in both His natures, present with 
the Church militant on earth, as if when that celebration was 
over He withdrew His presence, and the members of His 
Church, apart from that public assembly, were, while in their 
vocations, their trials, and temptations, deprived of that most 
sweet presence of Christ, their High Priest and King, their Head 
and their Brother. On the contrary, there is in the observance 
of the Lord's Supper a public, solemn, and peculiar attestation 
and sealing of the truth, that Christ, our Mediator and Saviour, 
wishes mercifully to be present with His Church, which is war- 
ring in the world, to be present, not with the half, or with one 
part of Himself only, to wit, His divinity alone, but whole and 
entire, that is, in that nature also which He has assumed, 
in which He is of like nature with us, our Kinsman and our 
Brother — that nature in which He was tempted, so that He 
might have compassion on us in our griefs — that nature in 
which, by His sufferings and death, He finished the work of 
our redemption, so that thus we may be rendered members of 
His body, of His flesh, and of His bones (Eph. v. 30). And 
because our reason cannot grasp or comprehend this, St. Paul 
adds: i This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ 
and the Church.'" 

" The humanity which Christ assumed was not, by that 
iv. Modes of un i° n with Deity, converted or transmuted into an 
presence. i. The infinite or immense essence, but has and retains in 
its y wn nlkre ^ na t very union, and after it, the verity of a human 
local. nature, and its physical or essential properties, by 

which a true human body consists in a certain, finite, and cir- 
cumscribed symmetry (dimension) of members, and which, 
consisting in a local or finite situation and position of mem- 
bers, has one part distinct from another in a certain order. 
The body of Christ, therefore, with the property of its own 
nature, is essentially or naturally finite, that is, according to 
its natural properties, which it has and retains even in that 
union, it locally and circumscriptively occupies a certain 



PLACE, 



»# 



*De duab. Nat. 174. 



MODES OF PRESENCE REJECTED. 473 

" That mode of visible converse, and that circumscribed and 
local form of the presence of His body, according to the con- 
dition and mode of this earthly life, according to the flesh, 
He has by His ascension taken from us who are on earth. 
And this is what He means when He says : ' Again 2 And us to it8 
I leave the world, — me ye have not always.' These locality is no 

t , , n , longer on earth. 

words, theretore, speak of a mode of presence, ac- 
cording to the respect and condition of this world, A mode 

VISIBLE, SENSIBLE, LOCAL, AND CIRCUMSCRIBED, according to 

which mode of presence Christ is now no longer ordinarily 

PRESENT WITH HlS CHURCH ON EARTH." * 

" Since the body of Christ, neither in the (personal) union, 
nor in glory, is transmuted into an infinite or 

i n i . 3. Is not pres- 

lmmense substance, theretore through itself (per se), ent through the 
and of itself (ex se), even in glory, it is finite in P r °P erties of a 

v . n glorified hody, 

the property of its nature, and by the mode of hut in that mode 
glorified bodies is somewhere (alicubi), the pre- isinbeaveD - 
rogative of the personal union, as I have said, being excepted. 
And in this visible form or condition of glorified bodies, Christ, 
in His body, is not present to us in this life, in the Church 
militant on earth, but is in the heaveus, whence He shall 
return to judgment, in that form in which He now offers 
Himself to be seen by the souls of the blessed, and by angels."f 

''According to the natural properties of a true body, or by 
any essential attribute, the body of Christ (which 4 _ Modes of pres . 
is by the property of its nature finite) is not pres- ence rejected. 
ent in all places where the Supper is administered, either by 
local circumscription, or by any visible, sensible, or natural 
mode, respect, or condition of this world. This mode has been 
taken from the world." 

" Nor is the presence such as that of glorified bodies : in that 
form He will not appear till the final judgment." 

" We by no means teach that the body of Christ, as a bound- 
less mass, is expanded, distributed, diffused, drawn out, or 

*Deduab. Nat. 175. The limitation which Chemnitz designs to make by the 
word " ordinarily," has reference to such cases as the appearing of Christ to Saul 
on the way to Damascus, to Stephen, etc., as he shows at large. Do. 176, 177. 

fDo. 176. Cf. 177. 



474 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

extended through all places (or as Damascenus expresses it, 
that the flesh of Christ is corporeally co-extended with the 
Deity assuming it,) so that in this way it is present." 

" Nor by multiplication, or replication — as the image of 
one body in many pieces of a broken mirror. The body of 
Christ is one, not many." 

" By no means, also, do we think that the body of Christ, 
either in (the personal) union, or in glory, its substance being 
lost, and its essential properties abolished, is converted or 
transmuted into a spiritual substance, infinite, immense, and 
now in its essential property uncircumscribed, so that by reason 
of its essential, infinite immensity, it is in all places, and fills 
all things, as divinity in this mode, and in this respect is pres- 
ent everywhere ; for the substance of the natures and their 
essential properties remain in Christ unaffected, in that very 
union and glory." 

" Nor that the divine nature alone, and not the human also 
is present." 

" Nor that it agrees with the words of the institution, that 
we should understand the presence of the merit, virtue, and 
efficacy merely of the body of Christ, the substance of it being 
excluded and separated."* 

" Christ, according to His human nature, wills to be present 
in His Church, where His Supper is celebrated on 

5. The mode of ' \^ 

presence af- earth, and through the humanity He has assumed, 
firmed- as by an organ connate with us, as the ancients 

express it, wishes to apply, confirm, and seal to us His benefits, 
and thus to execute in the Church His office of life-giving, 
according to both natures, through His life-giving flesh."f 
The premise which is conceded is that " in a physical respect, 
e The premise m a natural mode and condition of this world, one 
which is con- body, according to its essential or natural proper- 
nifeTe'nce'which ties, i s n °t a ^ the same time in different places, nor 
is denied. j s there an essential or natural property in the body 

of Christ of being in different places, nor is it by any essential 
or natural attribute of Christ's body that it is present at the 
same time in all those places where the Supper of the Lord is 

*De duab. natur. 173. f Do. 178. 



THE LUTHERAN VIEW NOT EUTYCHIAN. 475 

celebrated, as in divinity it is the essential attribute of infinite 
immensity to be everywhere. All these things we concede." 
The inference which is denied is this : " But it by no means 
follows from this that the divine power of the Son of God 
cannot effect that, in anothee mode than that which is nat- 
ural and according to the physical properties of a body, or 
in the sensible manner of this world, with His body remain- 
ing safe in its substance, and its essential properties abiding 
He should be present wheresoever He wills, in a mode 
which is supernatural, divine, or heavenly, incomprehensi- 
BLE TO US." 

" IsTor is there a contradiction involved when the same body 
is said to be in one place, in the natural mode, according to 
its essential properties, and if it is maintained that beyond its 
physical attributes, through the will and power of God, it is 
present not in one, but in many places, in a supernatural, 
heavenly, or divine mode ; for there is no contradiction when 
what is contrary is attributed to the same thing in different 
respects and modes. And Justin rightly says : We commit 
the things of nature to nature, the things of art to art, and the 
things of God to God ; but Him all things obey." 

These extracts, as they throw light upon the Sacramental 
questions discussed by Dr. Gerhart, may also be useful in illus- 
trating yet more directly the point next raised. After finish- 
ing his parallel between the doctrines of the two Churches on 
the Lord's Supper, He takes up the " Reformed (and he might 
have added, the Lutheran,) Doctrine of the Person God manifest 
of Christ." On this great point, according to Dr. m the flesh. The 
Gerhart, "the Lutheran view is in the line of the tr " ne J r t J" P er- 
ancient Eutychian, and the Reformed in the line son of Christ. 
of the ancient Nestorian method of thought, though it would 
be unjust to charge either Confession with holding the corre- 
sponding ancient heresy." 

We shall not attempt to question the Doctor's position as to 
the Eestorianizing element in the Reformed view, Thg Lutheran 
but we think that the idea that the Lutheran view not E»ty- 
view of the person of Christ is in the " line of the chian ' 
ancient Eutychian," proceeds from a wholly incorrect judgment 



476 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of what the Lutheran view is. On the contrary, the statements 
of Lutheran doctrine, beyond every other, are guarded with 
extraordinary care against the Eutychian tendency. "We main- 
tain, further, that no system is more thoroughly antagonistic 
to Eutychianism than the Lutheran system, properly under- 
stood. Even the Reformed doctrine itself has a point of 
apparent contact with it, which Lutheranism has not. Euty- 
ches taught that Christ has but one nature. The Lutheran 
Church holds " that the two natures, divine and human, are 
inseparably conjoined in unity of person, one Christ, true God 
and true man."* Eutyches taught that the body of Christ 
was not of the same substance as ours. The Lutheran Church 
teaches that " Jesus Christ is man, of the substance of His 
mother, born into the world, perfect man, of a rational soul 
and human flesh subsisting. One Christ, not by the conver- 
sion of divinity into flesh, but by the assumption of humanity 
to God ; one, indeed, not by confusion of substances, but by 
unity of person, for as the rational soul and flesh is one man, 
so God and man is one Christ. "f The doctrine of Eutyches 
is, moreover, expressly rejected in several passages of the 
Formula Concordise. But is not the Reformed doctrine, that 
Christ's personal presence at the Lord's Supper is only in one 
nature, a concession logically so far to Eutyches, that it seems 
to admit that sometimes, and somewhere, nay, rather always, 
almost everywhere, Christ has but one nature ? 

Alike removed from Nestorianism and Eutychianism, the 
illustration of doctrine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church may 
the Lutheran \) Q thus illustrated : The essential properties of 
each nature of our Lord are undisturbed by their 
union in Him, but as these two natures form one inseparable 
person, the whole person is involved in the acts of each part 
of it. Everything that the Saviour did and suffered is both 
divine and human, that is, it is personal. He did, and suffered 
all, and He is both human and divine. Every act, indeed, is 
done, every suffering endured, through or by the one or the 
other nature, but not without the personal presence of the 
other. Jesus Christ wrought miracles through the divine 

* Augsburg Confession, Art. III. f Athanasian Creed, 29-35. 



ILLUSTRATION OF THE LUTH. DOCTRINE. 477 

nature, but they were wrought by the human nature. Through 
His divine omnipotence sight was given to the blind, but His 
divine omnipotence wrought it by His human touch. Jesus 
Christ died according to His human nature, but His death 
was the death of a divine person. Through His human infir- 
mity He was crucified, but that human weakness wrought 
by His divine majesty an infinite sacrifice. Godhead cannot 
bleed, but the Church is purchased by the blood of God ; for He 
who bleeds is in one inseparable person, God as well as man, 
and His blood has efficacy, not because of the properties of the 
nature according to which He bleeds, but because of the attri- 
butes of His whole person, which is divine. Had not He who 
bled been personally God as well as man, His blood would not 
have availed. Jesus Christ is essentially and necessarily omni- 
present according to the divine nature, but His human nature 
not of its own essence, or by a necessity resulting from its own 
attributes, but because the divine has taken it into personal 
union with itself, is rendered present through the divine. The 
divine neither loses nor imparts any essential attribute, nor 
does the human lose any essential attribute of its own, nor 
receive any essential attribute of the divine ; but the divine, 
omnipresent of itself, renders present the human which has 
been taken into its own person. The doctrine on which this 
rests is known in theological technology as the " Commanicatio 
idiomaium," that is, the common participation of properties, the 
doctrine that the properties of the divine and human natures 
are actually the properties of the whole person of Christ, and 
actually exercised by Him in the unity of His person. We 
Lutherans affirm that there is a real common participation of 
the whole person in the properties of both natures. The 
Reformed deny it, and say that there is no real common partici- 
pation, but that each nature is isolated from the other in its 
attributes, and that the person of Christ has only the common 
participation in the names of the two sets of attributes, the 
human and divine. In other words, the question which 
divides us is between a communicatio idiomatum, and a commu- 
nicatio nominum, the question whether the two natures enjoy a 
common participation of properties in the one person, or merely 



478 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION, 

a common participation of names. To Lutherans, the view we 
reject seems logically to run out into a denial of the unity of 
Christ's person, and of the reality of the incarnation. 

It may tend to give a clearer view of the doctrine to present 
Four points in four points in it, in the order in which they stand 
the doctrine. - m tlie Formula of Concord. 

1. The Lutheran Church holds that from a personal union 
of the divine- and human, it follows that there are not two 
Christs, outwardly conjoined, one of whom is God, and the 
other a man, but one Christ, who is both God and man in one 
person. 

2. These two natures are not fused into one substance, nor 
is the one absorbed by, or transmuted into the other, but each 
nature retains its essential properties, neither losing its own, 
nor receiving those of the other. 

3. Dr. Gerhart, in denning the true doctrine as he regards 
it, says: "The Reformed predicated the essential attributes 
of divinity of the divine nature only." So do we. Dr. Ger- 
hart is entirely mistaken in imagining that the doctrine of our 
Church is in conflict with this position. In the very state- 
ment of our doctrine over against its opposite, the Formula 
Concordise says 5* " The attributes of the divine nature are, to 
be omnipotent, eternal, infinite, and of itself, according to the 
attribute of its nature and of its own natural essence, to be 
present everywhere, and to be omniscient. All these attributes 
neither are, nor ever can become, the attributes of the human 
nature." 

4. Nor is Dr. Gerhart more happy in stating a point of dif- 
ference between the doctrine of our Church and his own, when 
he says : " The Reformed predicated the essential attributes of 
humanity of (Christ's) human nature only." So do we. The 
paragraph of the Formula of Concord next to the one we have 
quoted, says : " The properties of human nature are : To be a 
corporeal creature, to consist of flesh and blood, to be finite 
and circumscribed, to suffer, die, ascend, descend, to move from 
place to place, to hunger, thirst, grow cold, suffer from heat, 
and such like. These never are, nor can become the attributes 
of the divine nature." 

*Page 606. 



SUMMARY OF THE VIEW OF OUR CHURCH. 479 

Our Confessions teach that the essential attributes of Christ's 
human nature belong to it forever. He remains a true man, 
with every essential property of the nature of a true man. 
The divine nature loses no essential attributes of deity, and 
the human nature receives none. To be essentially. 

u ? Summary of 

or by virtue of its own nature, everywhere present, the view of our 
omnipotent, and omniscient, is something divine ; Clmrch - 
and hence the Lutheran Church holds that the Godhead alone 
is essentially, and by virtue of its own nature, everywhere pres- 
ent, allwise, and almighty. So also to be essentially, or by 
virtue of its own nature limited, in presence, in power, and in 
wisdom, pertains to the human nature, and hence the Lutheran 
Church holds that the humanity of Christ is neither omnipres- 
ent, omniscient, nor omnipotent, essentially or by virtue of its 
own nature. The humanity of Christ has all the essential (by 
no means, however, all the accidental) properties of ours, and 
in and of itself is finite. God became man, but Godhead does 
not become humanity. A man is God — but humanity does 
not become Deity. In this aspect the Lutheran Church draws 
a distinction, total and all-comprehending, between the pres- 
ence of the Godhead of Christ and the presence of His human- 
ity. Omnipresence is the essential attribute of the divine, and 
hence His Godhead is necessarily, in and of itself, in virtue of 
its own nature, present. But the essential attribute of the 
human is to have a determinate presence, and hence the human 
nature of Christ has such a determinate presence, nor in and 
of itself would the human nature have any other presence ; but 
as it is in one person with the divine, it is in that one person 
rendered present with and through the divine. In other words, 
what the divine has in its essence and of itself, the human has 
and exercises through the divine, in consequence of its per- 
sonal union with it. We might imitate one of our Lord's own 
deep expressions in characterizing it, and might suppose Him 
to say: " As my divine nature hath omnipresence in itself, so 
hath it given to my human nature to have omnipresence in 
itself." 

From what has been said, our readers will be prepared to 
answer for themselves the most specious objection which is 



480 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

brought against the doctrine of our Church. That objection 
is this : That to be omnipresent is an essential attribute of 
Godhead, and, therefore, the humanity of Christ cannot be 
omnipresent ; for that would be to suppose humanity to have 
Answer to the an essential attribute of divinity. The reply is 
tTthe* Lutheran easv : To be omnipresent of itself in virtue of its 
doctrine. own essence, is an attribute of the divine, and, there- 

fore, the humanity of Christ is not, and cannot be omnipresent 
of itself in virtue of its own essence ; but the Godhead can render 
it present through the divine, with which it is one person. The 
one humanity of Christ can be present in two modes : one, finite 
and independent, in which mode it is present of itself by virtue 
of its own essence ; the other, infinite and dependent, in which 
it is not present of itself in virtue of its own essence, for that, we 
admit, would be to claim for it a divine attribute, but is ren- 
dered present by the divine. In other words, the Godhead, 
which of itself is present, makes present the human, which is 
one person with it. So, to be conscious in its own essence, or of 
its own nature, is an essential property of soul, not of matter ; 
therefore, the human eye> in its own essence or nature, has no 
power of being conscious of light ; but when the eye is united 
as a part of the body, in one person with the soul, the eye has 
a real sight through the soul, as the soul has its sight by the 
eye ; but there are riot two consciousnesses. The soul does not 
give up its consciousness, nor does the eye receive it. Both 
retain their essential attributes. The eye does not become 
spirit, nor the soul become matter ; nor has the soul one con- 
sciousness, nor the eye another ; but the whole person has its 
one consciousness, through the soul and by the eye. There is 
a common participation of the two natures in the act of the 
one person ; and not verbally, but really, the man sees through 
his soul and by his eye ; the eye itself really receiving a dis- 
tinct set of powers, from its union with the soul, and the soul 
exercising its own essential power, under a wholly new set of 
conditions, in consequence of its union with the eye. But if 
some minute philosopher persists in saying: You then attribute 
to matter the consciousness which alone pertains to mind, we 
reply : An independent, self-originating consciousness belongs 



DOCTRINES OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 481 

to mind ; but a dependent, soul-originated consciousness be- 
longs to matter. There is no transfer of properties ; but there 
is a common participation in them. And so, in some sense, 
and yet with the infinite difference made by the nature of the 
subjects in this case, we reply to the sophism against the doc- 
trine of our Church : The divine in Christ is forever divine ; 
the human forever human ; but as they can never be con- 
founded, so can they never be separated; and the one person 
participates in both, and each has a personal communication 
with the attributes of the other. " Great is the mystery of 
Godliness : God was manifest in the flesh." 

In Dr. Gerhart's further development of the doctrine of the 
German Reformed Church, especially as related to The Reformed 
that of the Lutheran Church, he goes on to say, in doctrines of™ 
immediate connection with the words on which we Person of Christ. 
have already dwelt : " The Reformed . . thus emphasizing 
especially the difference of the two natures, though affirming 
them to be inseparably and eternally united in one person." 
The German Reformed Church certainly does not affirm more 
emphatically than the Lutheran that the two natures are dif- 
ferent, although it may exaggerate the difference until it 
obscures the doctrine of the unity. But when Dr. Gerhart 
says that his Church affirms the two natures to " be insepara- 
bly and eternally united in the one person," he strikes the very 
rock which is fatal to the logical consistency of the whole 
un-Lutheran view of this great subject. For at the Lord's 
Supper he admits that the divine nature of Christ is present. 
Now, either the human nature of Christ is united with the 
divine there, or it is not. If it be there united with it, it 
must be there present with it, for personal union implies not 
only presence, but the most intimate species of presence. If it 
be not united with it there, it is separated from it there, and 
consequently not inseparably united. Except in the locality 
in which the human nature of Christ is confined, on the 
Reformed theory, the human is separated from the divine and 
the divine from the human. So far then from the union, on 
this theory, being inseparable, there is but a solitary point at 
which the two natures are not separated. As is infinity to a 
31 



482 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

space of a few feet, so is the separateness of the two natures 
of Christ to their unity on the Reformed theory. And this 
shows that the divergence of the Reformed and Lutheran 
views on the Lord's Supper originates in a radical diversity on 
one point of doctrine, of the highest importance, in regard to 
the person of Christ. When the Augsburg Confession * says 
that the two natures are " in unitate persons inseperabiliter 
conjunctse," (in unity of person inseparably conjoined,) it asserts 
what in its sense the Reformed doctrine denies. The connection 
of the two doctrines of the inseparableness of Christ's person, 
and the co-presence of them in the Supper, is no afterthought 
of the stricter Lutheran theology, hut was distinctly before 
Melanchthon's mind in the whole era of the composition of the 
Confession. Thus, January 30, 1529, Melanchthon wrote : " It 
is not to be imagined that the divinity of Christ is anywhere where 
His humanity is not ; for what is this but to separate Christ ? "f 
And a little later, April, 1529 : " Why should there be these 
contentions in regard to the Lord's Supper ? As all confess 
that Christ is present in the communion (synaxi), according 
to His divine nature, to what purpose is it to separate the 
humanity from the divinity?" % In a similar strain he writes 
to (Ecolampadius, April 8, 1529 : " I look at Christ's promises 
of this kind, c Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of 
the world ! ' where there is no need to tear away the divinity from 
the humanity. Hence (proinde) I believe that this sacrament is 
the testimony of a true presence. . . It is a sentiment unworthy 
of Christians, that Christ in such a way occupies a part of 
heaven — that He sits in it as if shut up in prison. . . We are 
to form our judgment of heavenly things not from geometry, 
bat from the Word of God." § These extracts show that Me- 
lanchthon meant by an "inseparable" union, one which ex- 
cluded the separation in space as well as in time, and that the 
doctrine of the Formula of Concord on the personal co-presence 

*Art. III. 1. 

f Corp. Reform. I. No. 585. Non est fingeudum, alicubi esse divinitatem 
Christi, ubi non sit humanitas. Quid hoc est aliud, quam seperare Christum? 
% Corp. Ref. I. No. 596. Quid attinet discerpere humanitatem a divinitate ? 
a Corp. Ref. I. No. 598. 



OUR SAVIOUR'S PRESENCE IN HEAVEN. 483 

of both natures of Christ is but the doctrine of the Augsburg 
Confession amplified. 

Dr. Gerhart goes on to state very fairly the doctrines which 
are necessarily involved in the view of his Church. 

u Our Saviour's 

He says: "Before the Ascension, the human was presence on 
located on earth." With this proposition as a earth ' 
positive one, we agree ; but if it means that even when on 
earth the human nature of our Lord had no capacity of a 
higher presence through the divine in the one person, our 
Church would deny it. Our Lord speaks of Himself to Mco- 
demus as " He that came down from heaven, even the Son of 
man which is in heaven." The difference between our Lord 
on earth and in glory was not in what He had intrinsically, 
nor in what He had the ability to do, but in what He volun- 
tarily exercised, or chose to forego. His humiliation consisted 
in the ordinary abnegation of the use of the powers which 
abode in Him intrinsically ; but at times He chose, even on 
earth, to reveal that glory. He allowed the form of God to 
manifest itself in His transfiguration, and in His miracles, but 
His equality with God was none the more positive then than 
when His sweat, mingling with His blood, fell to the ground 
in Gethsemane. He moved on earth in the ordinary voluntary 
suspension of the exercise of His great prerogatives. While 
our Church, therefore, holds most firmly that His human 
nature was on earth locally, she denies that it had no other 
power of presence than the local, and that in every sense, 
necessarily and unchangeably, it was on earth only. 

But Dr. Gerhart states still more fully, and with even more 
transparent fairness, the doctrine of his Church our saviour's 
thus: "After the ascension it (the human) was hea^I^'heRe" 
located at the right hand of God, and nowhere else, formed theor - y - 
being excluded from the earth, and limited to the place of exal- 
tation in heaven." The symbolical orthodoxy of this position 
he proves by a citation from the Genevan Catechism, which is 
all very well, if the German Reformed Church is in the whole 
unity of the Calvinistic faith ; but is not so satisfactory, if that 
Church, as we understand some of its ablest divines now to 
contend, is not Calvinistic. 



484 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

In Dr. Gerhart's statement, if it be analyzed, are the follow- 
ing propositions : 1. That the human nature of Christ is local- 
ized. 2. That its locality is at the right hand of God. 3. 
That by necessary consequence the right hand of God is a 
locality. 4. That the human nature of Christ is nowhere else ; 
but is, 5. Excluded from the earth ; and, 6. Limited to the 
place of exaltation in heaven. 

On every one of these points the Lutheran Church differs from 
The Lutheran tBe Reformed, if Dr. Gerhart presents the Reformed 
Antithesis. view correctly, as we think, in the main, he does. 

1. The generally received view in our Church is that even 
the finite presence of our Saviour's human nature is not local, 
but definitive, that is, that its mode of presence is more closely 
analogous to that in which a created spirit is present, than to 
that of unglorified matter. St. Paul declares that the resurrec- 
tion body " is a spiritual body," that is, a body analogous in 
its properties to spirit, and, as the antithesis to " natural," a 
body with supernatural properties. That our Saviour at His 
resurrection entered on the plenary use of the powers whose 
exercise He had foregone in His humiliation, is so well known 
as the doctrine of our Church, that we need cite no passages to 
prove it. But we might cite many passages from Calvinistic 
writers to show that not all of them sympathize with the dis- 
position to narrow the power of our Saviour's humanity. We 
will give a single extract from one of the most finished and 
thoughtful Calvinistic writers of our day, the late Dr. James 
Hamilton. It will be found in his delightful little volume, 
"A Morning beside the Lake of Galilee," which 

1. The Saviour's _, . n • j /• 

resurrection-iife. dwells upon one scene in our Saviour s resurrection- 
Bamiiton. y^ Q Qn eSiY ^ jj e savs : " Christ came in the morn- 
ing. So at first we are apt to say ; but it would be putting it 
more correctly, if we said that Christ, who had been present 
all the night, allowed Himself to be seen in the morning. He 
was now risen from the dead, and had put on that glorious 
body which evades our grosser sense, and needs an act of will 
to make it visible.* In His ubiquitous Godhead everywhere 

* After His resurrection, Christ's body was only visible by a distinct act of His 
will. — Chrr/sostom, quoted by Trench. 



THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD. 485 

present, at any moment, or in any place, He could emerge to 
view and reappear in corporeal guise, so that former intimacy 
was able to exclaim, ' It is the Lord,' and so that He Himself 
was able to say, ' Reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into 
my side ;' and as soon as the purpose was fulfilled, without 
necessarily quitting the spot, the glorified body ceased to be 
seen. In its escape from the sepulchre, more entirely trans- 
figured than it had been on the Holy Mount, it was only when 
the Lord Jesus so willed, that in flesh and blood, as of old, 
that body stood revealed ; and when the design was accom- 
plished, it again retired into the super-sensual sphere of its 
habitual invisibleness. It was 'on this wise that Jesus showed 
Himself,' w T hen,at any period after His resurrection, He was seen 
at all. It was not by entering an apartment, or by arriving 
from a journey, but by coming forth from the impalpable and 
viewless, that, whether to longing disciples or to the startled 
persecutor, He stood disclosed ; no phantom, no mere vision, 
courting severest scrutiny : ' Handle me and see,' — and into that 
materialism, reembodied by His own divine volition, the normal 
state of His glorified humanity was such as mortal sense cannot 
grasp ; and just as when the body was ' earthy,' the thing super- 
natural was for His ' face to shine as the sun,' so now that it 
was ' heavenly,' the thing supernatural was for that body to 
come out appreciable by untransfigured organs — perceptible 
to eyes and ears which were not yet immortal like itself." 

If such was the nature of the manifestations of Christ's 
spiritual body in what we might style the provisional inter- 
vals, what might we expect when it entered upon all the pleni- 
tude of its glory at the right hand of God ? 

2. For to us the right hand of God is not a place, nor is the 
ascension to His right hand the rising to a place. If the right 
hand of God means a place, we might well ask, Where is His 
left hand ? To sit at the right hand of God is to be associated 
in His sovereign rule, and to share in His sovereign power. 
The right hand of God, if you relate it to presence, 2 The right 
is everywhere ; if you take it in its Scriptural use, hando ? God - 
it either means the omnipotence of God, or His regal majesty, 
and has no reference to space at all. When we teach that 



486 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, we mean that He rules 
in co-sovereignty with the Father, in a potency which, as it is 
exercised on all things, must he in all places, a potency which, 
as it is inseparable from the substance of His whole person, in 
which it inheres, implies the presence of that whole person, 
and, therefore, of His humanity, which is an essential and 
inseparable constituent of that person. 

3. Hence the Lutheran Church, while it firmly believes that 
the presence which the human nature of Christ has in and of 
itself is determinate and limited, believes that there is a pres- 
ence of that human nature no less real, in and through the 
divine nature with which it is one person, and that in this 
mode of presence it is as really on earth as in heaven. God 
has given Him the uttermost parts of the earth for His posses- 
sion ; His mediatorial dominion is from sea to sea, and from 
the river unto the ends of the earth. God has said: "I will 
set His hand in the sea, and His right hand in the rivers," and 
we devoutly rest in the faith that our Saviour rules not by 
vicars, but in His own glorious and all-sufficient person, true 
God and true man inseparably. When we remember that the 
3 s irit and on ^J absolute essence is Spirit, that all matter is 
matter. thought into being by the infinite Spirit, rests on 

that essence for its continued existence, derives all its attri- 
butes from, owes all its properties to, the will which gave and 
continues its being ; when we remember that the body of our 
Lord is in personal union with the absolute essence . which 
creates all things, we can easily draw the inference not only 
that any properties which it was possible for God to will that 
His body should have, should belong to it, but that it would 
have an adaptation as a personal organ of the divine nature, 
and properties necessary for that adaptation which would 
infinitely transcend the sublimest forms of all other matter. 
If such subtle matter, as the etherial medium which undulates 
into light, be the mere raiment of God, what may be the exqui- 
site subtlety of that matter which is assumed into His very 
person? Science detects a form of matter whose undulations, 
in forming one color, are seven hundred and twenty-seven mil- 
lions of millions in a second, and it is within the power of God 



THE HEIDELBERG CATECHISM. 487 

to give to matter properties which transcend those of light, 
infinitely more than the properties of light transcend those of 
lead or clay. When we think of matter with this amazing 
range of qualities, taken as the very organ of incarnate Deity, 
we may realize that the demands of the " spiritual body " of 
our Lord, on faith, pertain to the highest mysteries and sub- 
limest trust with which it called to justify its work of bring- 
ing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. 

Dr. Gerhart goes on to illustrate his position : " The Heidel- 
berg Catechism," he says, " inquires in the forty- The Heidelberg 
seventh Question : ' Is not then Christ with us, as catechism. 
He has promised, unto the end of the world ? ' " It seems as 
if it were felt that the Reformed position was open to the sus- 
picion of seeming to empty Christ's promise of its fulness. 
!N"or does the answer of the Catechism relieve this suspicion. 
Its answer is : " Christ is true man and true God. According 
to His human nature, He is not now upon earth ; but accord- 
ing to His Godhead, majesty, grace, and Spirit, He at no time 
departs from us." The reply wears to us the air of a certain 
evasiveness, as if it parried the question rather than answered 
it. It seems to answer a certain question, but really answers 
another ; or rather, it seems to answer affirmatively, but actually 
answers negatively. If Christ be true man and true God, then 
humanity and divinity are inseparable elements of His essence ; 
where either is wanting, Christ is wanting. If the question 
be, Is the divine nature of Christ present? the Heidelberg 
Catechism answers it, affirming that it is. If the question be, 
Is the human nature of Christ present ? the Heidelberg Cate- 
chism answers, and says it is not. But if the question be, as 
it is, Is Christ present ? the Heidelberg Catechism does not 
answer it, for it leaves the very heart of the query untouched : 
Can Christ, in the absence of an integral part of His person, 
really be said to be present ? As far as the Heidelberg Cate- 
chism implies an answer to this question, that answer seems 
to us to be, Christ is not present. Ursinus, in His explanation 
of the Catechism, is compelled virtually to concede this, for on 
the thirty-sixth Question, in reply to the objection, that on 
His theory, as " the divinity is but half Christ, therefore only 



488 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

half Christ is present with the Church," he replies : " If by 
half Christ they understand one nature which is united to the 
other in the same person, the whole reason may be granted: 
namely, that not "both, but one nature only of Christ, though 
united to the other, that is, His Godhead, is present with us." 
Leydecker, in commenting on this Question, says: "The 
absence of the human nature does not take away the presence of 
the Deity." Ileppe (himself Reformed) indeed declares that it 
is the Reformed doctrine that " the humanity of Christ is not 
a part of His person," and quotes to sustain this position, 
Polanus, Heidegger, Zanchius, and Cocceius, but it does not 
strike us that Dr. Heppe has understood his authorities, or the 
natural force of his own terms. 

Nor does the Heidelberg Catechism relieve the grand diffi- 
culty of its theory by its next question and answer, which Dr. 
Gerhart also quotes. " Question forty-eight : But if His human 
nature is not present wherever His Godhead is, are not the two 
natures in Christ separated from one another ? By no means ; 
for since the Godhead is incomprehensible and everywhere pres- 
ent, it must follow that the same is both beyond the limits of 
the human nature He assumed, and yet none the less in it, and 
remains personally united to it." This reply, as we understand 
it, runs out logically into this : The Godhead is inseparably 
connected with the humanity, but the humanity is not insep- 
arably connected with the Godhead ; that is, one part of the 
person is inseparably connected with the other, but the other 
is not inseparably connected with that one part : the whole 
second person of the Trinity is one person with the humanity 
in one point of space, but everywhere else it is not one person 
with it. There is, in fact, apparently no personal union what- 
ever, but a mere local connection — not a dwelling of the ful- 
ness of the Godhead bodily, but simply an operative mani- 
festation ; two persons separable and in every place but one 
separated, not one inseparable person — inseparable in space as 
well as in time. As God dwells in His substantial presence 
everywhere, as He has a special and gracious presence in the 
bodies and souls of believers, as He so dwelt in inspired men 
as to make them miraculous organs of truth and of supernatu- 



THE HEIDELBERG CATECHISM. 489 

ral powers, it is exceedingly difficult to prevent this low view 
from running out into Socinianism, as, indeed, it actually has 
run in Calvinistic lands, so that it became a proverb, often 
met with in the older theological writers — "A young Calvinist, 
an old Socinian." This peril is confessed and mourned over 
by great Calvinistic divines. New England is an illustration 
of it on an immense scale, in our own land. Even the Socin- 
ianism of other parts of the Protestant world illustrates the 
same tendency, for these communions have either developed 
out of Calvinistic Churches, as, for example, the Arminians, 
or have first gone over, practically, to the Reformed basis, 
and on it have built their later Rationalism, as in the apostate 
portions of the Lutheran Church. Just those portions of the 
Reformed Churches which have been most free from Socinian- 
ism, are those which have been characteristically Lutheraniz- 
ing, as the German Reformed and the Church of England. 
And it seems to us that the most dangerous consequences 
might be logically deduced from the Reformed theory. The 
divine nature is a totality and an absolute unit, in which there 
can be no fractions. It does not exist, and is not present, by 
parts, but as a whole. It is present not by extension nor 
locality, but after another manner, wholly incomprehensible to 
us, not less real, but if there may be degrees of reality, more 
real than the local. If the divine nature is present at all with- 
out the human nature of Christ, the whole of it is present 
without that human nature. If the whole divine nature of 
Christ be present on earth without His human nature, then 
the whole divine nature is unincarnate here. If it be unincar- 
nate here, then it could take to itself another human nature 
on earth, or, for the matter of that, an infinite number of 
human natures, each of them as really one person with it 
apparently, on this theory, as the human nature of Christ now 
is. If, moreover, such a conjunction as this theory asserts is 
really a unity of person, then this infinitude of human natures 
being one person in the divine, would be one person with each 
other also. Nor is this supposition of the evolution of such 
a theory from these premises purely imaginary. Dr. Brew- 
ster, in his Defence of the Theory of the Plurality of Worlds, 



490 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

has actually tried to solve certain difficulties by suggesting the 
idea of multiplied cotemporaneous incarnations of the Son of 
God in different worlds. "May not the divine nature," he 
says, " which can neither suffer nor die, and which in our 
planet, once only, clothed itself in humanity, resume else- 
where a physical form, and expiate the guilt of unnumbered 
worlds ? "* This is giving us Hindoo mythology for divine 
theology, and substituting Yishnu for Christ. 

This, then, is the result which our Church, guided by God's 
Spirit in His Word, has reached: That a unity 
which does not imply the co-presence of its con- 
stituent parts cannot be called a personal unity, that unity 
which is so perfect that the very identity of the subject of it 
centres in it. With this result our faith reverently coincides, 
and our reason is in harmony with our faith. To us there 
seems no real incarnation possible, logically, on any other 
theory ; but if logic allowed it, the Word of God would not. 

Dr. Gerhart goes on to say: " The question arises logically: 
The Lord's sup- Since the humanity of Christ is limited to the right 
and" Ln?i™in hand of God, and believers on earth commune, in 
views. the Lord's Supper, with the flesh and blood of 

Christ, no less than with His Spirit, how is the communion 
established and maintained ? " As a voucher for the doctrine 
which underlies the question, Dr. Gerhart gives, in a note, a 
sentence from Calvin's Confession of Faith, concerning the 
Eucharist, 1537, which, literally translated, runs thus : "When, 
therefore, we speak of the communion which believers have 
with Christ, we mean that they commune not less with His 
flesh and blood than with His Spirit, so that they thus possess 
the whole Christ." Dr. Gerhart goes on to say, in answer to 
the question given above : "In opposition to the ITbiquitarian 
theory of the Lutherans, the Reformed theologians replied : 
By the mysterious agency of the Holy Spirit, elevating the 
hearts of believers to Christ in heaven, who feeds and nour- 
ishes them with the life-giving power of His flesh and blood." 
If we analyze these sentences, we find that they express or 
imply the following propositions : 

*More Worlds than One. N. Y. 1854. p. 148. 



FIE ST AND SECOND PROPOSITIONS. 491 

1. " The humanity of Christ is limited to the right hand of 
God." We have tried to show that the right First Proposi . 
hand of God is not limited, but, on the contrary, tion - 
involves omnipresent and omnipotent rule. "Whatever effect, 
therefore, being at the right hand of God may have on the 
humanity of Christ, it certainly does not limit it. 

2. " Believers, on earth, commune, in the Lord's Supper, 
with the flesh and blood of Christ." If by this Second Propo . 
is meant that none but those who receive the sition - 
Lord's Supper in faith share in its blessings, the statement is 
entirely Scriptural and Lutheran. The Augsburg Confession 
expressly rejects the idea of those who teach that " the Sacra- 
ments justify by the outward work wrought, (ex opere operato,) 
and who do not teach that faith is required in the use of the 
Sacraments." 

But as the communion is not based upon something ideal, 
but on a supernatural verity, upon a presence spiritual, heav- 
enly, and incomprehensible in its manner, yet most true, a 
presence of the human nature of Christ, as the mystery of this 
presence has its heart not in us, but in the Incarnate Mediator, 
we believe that alike to those who receive the Supper in faith, 
and to those who receive it in unbelief, the object sacramentally 
received is the same. The believer embraces it in faith, to his 
soul's health ; and the unbeliever, " not discerning the Lord's 
body," but treating that which he receives as if it were mere 
bread, " eateth and drinketh damnation to himself," but it is 
the same thing which is salutary to the one and judicial to 
the other. When a Paine, or a Voltaire, takes a Bible into 
his hand to turn its life-giving nourishment to poison in his 
own soul, the Bible is no less the Bible, no less really the organ 
of the Holy Ghost, than when an Arndt or an Edwards bends 
over it in the deepest devotion. When the great Kohinoor 
diamond shone in the head of the Hindoo idol, or when it 
was in the hand of the soldier who stole it, it was no less a 
diamond than it is now, lying amid the jewels of a great 
empire. When the Ark of the Lord sat in Dagon's temple, it 
was no less the Ark than when it was enshrined in the Holy of 
Holies ; and the judgment which went forth from it against 



492 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the fishy idol, equally with the joyous light which gladdened 
the High Priest when he went within the veil, attested it to 
be the earthly throne of the Most High. It might as well be 
said, that because the Romanist does not discern the bread in 
the Supper, he receives no bread, as that the unbeliever, 
because he does not discern the body of our Lord, does not 
commune with it sacramentally. Here is a grand distinctive 
element in the Lutheran view, that, apart from all qualities in 
the recipient, the presence of Christ's humanity in the Lord's 
Supper is a positive reality. The Sacramental communion 
rests on His person, not on our ideas. To a sick man, the food 
he receives may be as poison, but it is none the less food, with 
all the powers of nutriment which inhere in food. The reason 
that it does not nourish is in him, not in it. So the bread of 
life, whether offered in the Word or in the Sacrament, is the 
same intrinsically, and in its proper virtue, though unbelief 
converts that heavenly food to its own poison — changing, 
indeed, its effect, but leaving its substance unchanged. 

3. The communion, according to Dr. Gerhart, with the flesh 
Third proposi- an( l blood of Christ, takes place in the Lord's Sup- 
tion - per. But why, we may ask, limit such a commu- 

nion as he defines by the Lord's Supper ? The bread and wine 
are not the medium of it — and, as mere reminders of it, they 
have not the power which the Word has. On the Reformed 
view, the Sacramental elements have a function limited by 
their didactic or suggestive power over us ; for, up to this 
point, the Zwinglian and Calvinistic views are coincident. If 
it be answered, that the whole transaction of the Supper, the 
Word, and outward signs and special prayers, has extraordi- 
nary power, still it is the same in kind with the other means 
of grace, however much it may differ from them in degree. 
Such a communion, in a word, as the believer has with Christ, 
in the Holy Supper, through the Holy Spirit, he can have, and 
does have, on this theory, elsewhere. If the Lord's Supper 
has no special organ of communion, (and if it has the Holy 
Spirit only, it has no special organ, for He is the general organ 
of all grace,) then it has no special character. If the bread 
and wine are acknowledged as special organs, the external 



FOURTH PROPOSITION. 493 

appointed media of the distinctive blessings of the commu- 
nion, then you accept the Lutheran doctrine that Sacramental 
communion is oral, for by oral communion is meant no more 
than this — that that which is the organic medium of the 
communion is received by the mouth, that through the natu- 
ral we reach the supernatural. Our theologians, when they 
speak of a reception by the mouth, mean no more than this — 
that he that receives the bread and wine by the mouth natu- 
rally, thereby, as by an organ, receives the humanity of Christ 
sacramentally and supernaturally, just as when faith cometh 
by hearing, the ear receives the outward word naturally, and 
thereby organically receives the Holy Spirit, mediately and 
supernaturally, who conveys Himself in, with, and under that 
word. 

4. Dr. Gerhart says that the view of his Church is that the 
communion " in the Lord's Supper " is " with the Fourth propo- 
flesh and blood of Christ no less than with His sition - 
Spirit." Here there seems to be a great advance on the Zwin- 
glian view. A communion involves communication on the 
one part, and reception on the other. It is the Reformed doc- 
trine apparently that the flesh and blood of Christ are commu- 
nicated and received no less than His Spirit. The Reformed 
have insisted that to the question, AYhat is communicated and 
received in the Lord's Supper ? their answer is identical with 
ours. Christ's body and blood are given and received. This, 
Dr. Gerhart says, " was not at issue in the sixteenth century. 
On this point, Reformed and Lutherans were agreed." Even 
Zwingli, in his letter to the German princes, says : " We have 
never denied that the body of Christ is in the Supper." Far 
more strongly, Calvin, in his Institutes, says : "We are fed 
with the flesh and blood of Christ. Christ refreshes us with 
the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His blood. There 
is a true and substantial communication of the body and blood of 
our Lord." " This mystery is in its own nature incomprehen- 
sible. . . The body of our Lord was once offered for us that 
we may now eat it (nunc eo vescamur), and by eating, may 
experience in us the efficacy of that one only sacrifice. . . Thus 
sound the words of promise. . . We are commanded, therefore, 



494 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

to take and eat that body which was once offered for our sal- 
vation : that while we see ourselves participants of this, we 
may trust that the virtue of His life-giving death is strong 
within us."* "There are those who say that to eat Christ's 
flesh and drink His blood is nothing else than believing in 
caivin on the Christ Himself. But to me it seems that Christ 
Lord's supper. mean t to teach something clearer and sublimer 
than this. . . He meant to teach us that we have life given us 
by true participation of Himself. . . By true communication 
of Himself His life passes over into us and becomes ours, . . . 
if so great a mystery can be embraced in words — a mystery 
which I cannot even grasp in thought. . . I confess this lest 
any should mete its sublimity with the measure of my infancy. 
. . . Though the mind can reach what the tongue cannot 
express, yet here the mind itself is overcome and overwhelmed 
with the greatness of the thing. . . The mystery of the Holy 
Supper consists of- two things: the bodily signs . . and the 
spiritual verity, which, through those symbols, is at the same 
time figured and imparted (exhibetur). . . I say, therefore, 
that in the mystery of the Supper, through (per) the symbols 
of bread and wine, Christ is truly imparted (exhiberi) to us, 
even His body and blood, in which he fulfilled all obedience 
to obtain our justification: by which, to wit, we first are 
united into one body with Him, then being made partakers of 
His substance, we experience a virtue in the communication 
of all good things. . . Those absurdities " (of inclusion, cir- 
cumscription, and immensity,) " being set aside, I willingly 
receive whatever it is possible to frame (facere potest) to 
express a true and substantial communication of the body and 
blood of Christ, which, under the sacred symbols of the Sup- 
per, is imparted (exhibetur) to believers. . . If any one ask me 
in regard to the mode, I am not ashamed to confess that the 
secret is too high to be grasped by my mind, or to be set forth 
in words. . . I experience rather than understand it. . . In 
His Holy Supper He commands me, under (sub) the- symbols 
of bread and wine, to take, eat and drink His body and blood. 

*Institut. Lib. IV. cli. xviii. § 1. Ed. 1543. seq. Corp. Reformat, xxix. 199. 
Ed. Amstel. ix. 364. 



"THE UBIQUITARIAN THEORY:' 495 

I doubt not but that He truly offers them, and I receive 
them."* 

We could continue to fill pages with citations, of equal 
force, from Calvinistic "writers. Whatever interpretation 
we put upon them, they at least make it clear that a large 
part of the phraseology which our Church uses is accepted as 
sound and Scriptural by those who do not receive her doctrine. 
Those who shrink back from the terms of our Church, as car- 
nal, will find that her antagonists are compelled to use terms 
just as open to misconstruction. It is just as Calvinistic, on 
the showing of Calvinistic standards, to speak of eating the 
body and drinking the blood of Christ, in the Eucharist, as it 
is Lutheran. The question then lies fairly before the Chris- 
tian — Which view, Calvinistic or Lutheran, more honestly 
accepts the natural meaning of the premises, which is in more 
logical harmony with their necessary issues, and which more 
frankly stands by the obvious meaning of the terms chosen by 
itself to embody its faith ? 

As both parties start with the same form of words as to the 
premises, the first question here is, Do both accept -The ubiqui- 
them in the same sense? On one point we admit tanan theory " 
that both do — that is, that by the "flesh and blood of Christ," 
both mean His true human body and blood — the body which 
hung upon the cross, and which still maintains its identity, 
though glorified in heaven. But when the question arises, Do 
both mean the same thing when they speak of communing with 
this body and blood of Christ, the reply is, They do not. Here 
the Reformed Church seems to us to take away with one set of 
terms all that it had conceded with another. But although it 
differs from us, we cannot accept all of Dr. Gerhart's phraseol- 
ogy in regard to our Church as accurately marking the differ- 
ence. He characterizes our doctrine as the "Ubiquitarian theory 
of the Lutherans." We can conceive no reason why Dr. Gerhart 
applies the word "Ubiquitarian," unless it is that he imagines 
that there is some ground for the reproach against our doctrine, 
which was originally couched under this word, which is, indeed, 

*Institut. ch. xviii. 19, 22, 30. Corp. Ref. vol. xxix. 1003-1010. Ed. Am- 
stelod. 1667. ix. 370. seq. 



496 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

a barbarous and unnecessary one, and was devised by the enemies 
of our Church to injure it. When our Church is charged with 
the doctrine of the " Ubiquity " of Christ's human nature, it is 
usually meant, either, 1 : that the human nature in Christ is 
everywhere present, in the same way as the divinity, as an 
infinite essence, or by some essential virtue or property of its 
own nature ; or, 2 : that the human nature has been made 
equal to the divine, in its substance, essence, or essential prop- 
erties ; or, 3 : that the humanity of Christ is locally expanded 
in all places of heaven and earth — one and all of which our 
Church rejects in the most unqualified terms. The Godhead alone 
has an essential omnipresence. The human nature has a per- 
sonal omnipresence — that is, a presence not in or of itself, but 
through the divine, in virtue of its personal union with it. It 
is present not by extension or locality. The Godhead itself 
is not present by extension or locality ; neither does it render 
the human thus present. The divine nature is present after 
the manner of an infinite Spirit, incomprehensible to us ; and 
the human is present after the manner in which an infinite 
Spirit renders present a human nature which is one person 
with it — a manner not less, nor more, incomprehensible to us 
than the other. The true designation of the Lutheran doc- 
trine, on this point, would be, " The personal omnipresence of 
the human nature of Christ." 

In opposition to the Lutheran theory, Dr. Gerhart says : 
" The Reformed theologians (in answer to the 

The Reformed . . . & v . ■.,,„-, 

Theory. Some question : How is this communion with the flesh 
objections to it. and blood of Q^gt established and maintained?) 
replied : By the mysterious agency of the Holy Spirit, elevat- 
ing the hearts of believers to Christ in heaven, who feeds and 
nourishes them with the life-giving power of His flesh and 
blood." To this view, thus placed in antithesis to that of our 
Church by Dr. Gerhart, we have many objections, some of 
which, because of the antagonism in which he has placed the 
two views, we feel it our duty to state. The Reformed view 
acknowledges a mystery — " the mysterious agency " it says — 
and so far concedes that, a priori, it has no advantage over 
against the Lutheran view, on the general ground that our view 



THE REFORMED THEORY. 497 

involves mystery. Rising, as it seems to ns, in an unconscious 
rationalism, it yet concedes that it cannot bring the question 
into the sphere of reason ; it simply takes it out of one 
part of the realm of mystery to lay it down in another. We 
suppose the mystery of the Supper to be that of the per- 
son of Christ ; the Reformed view supposes its mystery to be 
that of the work of the Holy Spirit. But we dread lest the 
rationalizing that fails to take the subject into the sphere of 
reason may carry the thinker thither, and that the Reformed 
view, which shifts the mystery, will run out into the Arminian 
or Socinian view, which sets it entirely aside ; for while the 
Reformed view acknowledges a mystery, it is evident that it 
hopes to find its account in the measurable relief of that mys- 
tery. It is a theory which seems to be reluctant to strain the 
text, and yet has a bribe for the reason over against the literal 
construction of that text. It is an uncomfortable thing, for it 
lays more on the heart than it lifts off the mind. We object 
to it, furthermore, that it seems to us to confound the distinc- 
tive work of two persons of the Trinity. It is the distinctive 
work of the incarnate Son of God to redeem, and to apply His 
redemption in His own person. It is the distinctive work of 
the Holy Spirit to work in us that faith which will savingly 
use what Christ offers. We, no less than the Reformed, recog- 
nize the necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit in the Lord's 
Supper ; not, however, to do Christ's work, but to do His own. 
The Holy Spirit makes us savingly partakers in what is received 
by the outward organs of the soul. Christ is intercessor for us 
with the Father, and so secures for us the possibility of par- 
taking in the blessings which centre in His person. The Holy 
Spirit is intercessor for the Father and the Son with us, and 
thus leads us actually to accept with the heart those most 
blessed gifts which the Father and Son offer us. In the 
Lord's Supper, Christ gives to us Himself, and the Holy Spirit, 
if we do not resist His sacred work, enables us, from the per- 
son of Christ thus given us, to draw those benefits of which 
that person is the sole spring. That the sacramental giving 
of Christ is the work of His own person, and not of the Holy 
Spirit, is most explicitly taught in the portions of the New 

32 



498 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Testament which speak of the Lord's Supper. That it is the 
work not of the Spirit, but of Christ, to impart to us Christ's 
body and blood sacramentally, is demonstrated by the fact, 
that when the Lord's Supper was instituted, the Holy Ghost 
was not given in any of the distinctive functions allotted to 
Him under the Eew Dispensation. These, it is distinctly 
taught, were not to be exercised till Christ was glorified and 
had gone to the Father. But whatever the words of the insti- 
tution mean now, they meant when the Supper was instituted. 
As they could not mean then that the Holy Ghost mediated 
Christ's presence, which, if it were done at all, would be in the 
highest degree a work of the E"ew Dispensation, they cannot 
mean it now. There is not a solitary passage in which the 
sacramental impartation of Christ's body is associated with 
the work of the Holy Spirit. For a true presence of Christ on 
earth the Reformed view substitutes an imaginary presence of 
the believer in heaven. The view seems to derogate from the 
personal sufficiency of Christ. It seems to separate properties 
from the substance in which they inhere, to sunder the efficacy 
from the Omnipotent Being who has that efficacy, to segregate 
the merits of Christ from His undivided person, in which they 
were wrought out. According to it, Christ's body can be truly 
eaten without being truly present ; it is rather we who are 
communicated to Christ than He to us ; the Holy Spirit lifts 
us to heaven ; the bread which we break is the communion of 
our spirit to Christward, not the communion of the body of 
Christ to us ward. We are the centre of the mystery. Christ's 
body is at one point on its circumference, and the Holy Spirit 
its radius ; the Holy Ghost can lift us to the body of Christ, 
but the divine nature of Christ cannot bring that body to us 
— our faith, with the aid of the Holy Ghost, can do what 
incarnate omnipotence cannot do. How tangled is that which 
promised to be so simple — how vague that which meant to be 
so sharp and clear. The terminology of the Reformed view is, 
in the last degree, perplexing, and wears the air of a want of 
candor. If it be accepted loosely, it runs out into the old 
Zwinglian theory, which is also the view of a low Arminian- 
ism, and of Rationalism. If it be accepted rigidly, it is less 



LIMBOBCH'S JUDGMENT OF CALV. DOCTRINE. 499 

intelligible, even to reason, than any other, and seems to us, 
when thoroughly sifted, to have, at some point, all the difficul- 
ties of all the other views, without their internal harmony. 
These weaknesses have been noted by others than Lutherans. 
The great Remonstrant divine, Limborch, whose clearness of 
thought, learning, and gentleness, are deservedly renowned, 
and who certainly, as between the two views, is impartial 
enough, says of the Calvinistic view : " It seems to LimborchVua 
have been invented by Bucer, who, in his desire ment of the c.i- 

n • -1,-1,1 • i j Mvi vinistic Doctrine. 

for peace, m order that he might reconcile the 
Lutherans and the Zwinglians, devised ambiguous expres- 
sions, which both sides might subscribe, without changing 
their opinion. But the attempt was a failure. The Lutherans 
complained of the deceitful dealing of the Reformed, who took 
back with one hand what they gave with the other. . . The 
Reformed held that in the Supper there is a communion with 
the physical substance of Christ's body, which they teach is 
there truly, though not substantially present. But the doc- 
trine involves no less an absurdity than that of the Lutherans. 
For that communion with the substance of Christ's body is 
either a communion with the body of Christ as it remains in 
heaven, or as it is verily present on earth, and in the use of the 
Supper. If they say the latter, they must admit the ubiquity 
of the body of Christ, and go over openly to the camp of the 
Lutherans. If they say the former, they affirm contradictory 
things ; for how is it possible that the body of Christ, which is 
in heaven, and nowhere else (as Beza says), should be truly 
communicated and be food to us who are on earth, and nowhere 
else? They say: Cur conjunction with the body of Christ is 
made as by a spiritual mouth through faith, by which we can 
render present to us many things which are absent. We 
answer : 1. The conjunction, through faith, with Christ, ought 
to precede the use of the Supper ; otherwise the man is 
unworthy who celebrates the Supper ; for by the celebration 
of it he testifies that he already has that communion. 2. That 
union which takes place through faith they expressly distin- 
guish from the union which takes place in the Supper, which 
latter they would have to embrace something more sublime 



500 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

and express. 3. The union by faitli is not incomprehensible. 
4. Nor does faith really render present things which are 
absent, but only represents them to itself as if they were pres- 
ent, though they are actually absent, for it is ' the substance of 
things hoped for.' Heb. xi. 1, Moreover : 5. Our soul can receive 
no spiritual fruit from communion with the very substance of 
the physical body and blood of Christ."* 

Calvinism is forced to admit that its view does not solve the 
mystery after all, but leaves it in its fathomless depth. It 
requires Christ's person, the Holy Spirit, and the faith of 
the believer, — three factors, confusing each other. The first 
factor is sufficient, and if justice is done it, the other two are 
not needed for the objective substance of the Sacrament ; they 
come in at their proper place, not to help Christ to make what 
He has perfectly made already, but to enable the recipient 
to receive savingly what he is receiving sacramentally. The 
Calvinistic view puts too much upon man, who is nothing, 
because it concedes too little to Christ, who is everything. 
There is more than wit, there is solemn argument in the illus- 
tration of a great old divine : " When Christ says, ' Behold, I 
stand at the door and knock : if any man hear my voice, and 
open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, 
and he with me,' a Calvinist might answer, Lord, there is 
no need for you to wait so long at the door. Return to your 
heaven, and when I wish to sup with you, I will fly up with 
my wings of faith, and meet you there, "f With its great 
advance upon the rationalism of Zwingli, the doctrine of Cal- 
vin still bore with it the fatal taint of the very view which he 
calls "profane.'' All that he gained in depth, as contrasted 
with Zwingli, he lost in clearness. He does not as flatly as 
Zwingli contradict the text, but he does what Zwingli did not, 
he contradicts himself. But two views will remain in the ulti- 
mate struggle, the rationalistic, Zwinglian, Arminian, Socinian 
view, which fully and consistently denies the whole mystery, 
on the one side, and the Scriptural, Catholic view, which 

*Theologia Christiana. Ed. Tert. Amstelsed. 1700. Fol. Lib. V. ch. lxxi. 
-j- Dannhauer : Reformirten Salve, u. Friedens-Gruss, quoted in Scherzer : 
Collegium Anti-Calviniannm. Lipsire. 1704. 4to. 603. 



LTJTH. DOCTRINE OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 501 

fully and consistently recognizes it on the other. This is 
the view of the objective reality of the presence held in its 
purity in the Lutheran Church, and held in the Roman and 
Greek Churches, though with the rubbish of human addi- 
tions heaped on it. The advance of either view presses out the 
Calvinistic — and both views are advancing. In some parts 
of the Reformed Church, as in the Church of England, the 
Episcopal Church, and the German Reformed Church, the 
Catholic view is more and more in the ascendant. , In other 
parts of the Reformed Churches, the Zwinglian view has long 
since so completely triumphed over the Calvinistic, that men 
who imagine themselves defenders of the purest Calvinism, 
reject contemptuously its fundamental doctrine of the Supper. 
Calvinism has really at least six points. Its most ardent 
defenders usually think it enough to maintain five. In their 
dropping of Calvin's doctrine of the Lord's Supper, if we deny 
their consistency, we cannot but praise their sagacity. The 
rigid logic which so wonderfully marks Calvin, in the other 
parts of his system, seems to fail him here, and it is not sur- 
prising that the Churches which maintain the views of that 
masterly thinker on almost every other point, have either posi- 
tively rejected, or quietly practically ignored his sacramental 
theories, which were, indeed, but an adaptation of the views 
of Bucer, which their originator ultimately abandoned for those 
of the Lutheran Church. They were grafted on Calvin's sys- 
tem, not grown by it, and they fall away even when the trunk 
retains its original vigor, or are retained, as the Unionistic 
theology, though with great changes, now retains them, 
when everything, ordinarily embraced in Calvinism, is utterly 
abandoned. 

Our object in this dissertation is by no means to sit in judg- 
ment on the doctrines of the Reformed Church. The Lutheran 
We have touched upon them only so far as Dr. doctrine f the 

, . , . Person of Christ 

Gerhart has thought it necessary to bring them a scriptural doc- 
into a disparaging contrast with the faith of our tnne ' 
Church — in a word, we have had no desire to attack them, 
but simply to defend ourselves. We have dwelt upon the two 
great doctrines of the person of Christ, and of the Lord's Sup- 



502 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

per, because these doctrines are of the highest importance, are 
vitally connected, and have been most frequently misunder- 
stood. The pure truth in regard to these grand themes, as 
our Church holds it, is one of her highest glories, and she 
must be forgiven if she is unwilling that any man should take 
from her her crown. 

Dr. Gerhart, in the paragraph which follows the one on 
which we have been dwelling, goes on to say : " The Lutheran 
Antithesis, (that is, in regard to the person of Christ,) was 
developed from the Lutheran theory of the Sacrament." If 
Dr. Gerhart means no more than that God in His Providence 
made the discussions in regard to the Lord's Supper the means 
of bringing more fully and harmoniously into a well-defined 
consciousness, and into clearer expression the doctrine of the 
Scriptures in regard to the person of Christ, we do not object 
to it ; but if he means that the doctrine of our Church on the 
person of Christ originated in the necessity of defending her 
doctrine in regard to the Lord's Supper, we think he is wholly 
mistaken. The doctrine of our Church rests upon the direct 
testimony of God's Word, and her interpretation of the mean- 
ing of that Word is not one of her own devising, but had been 
given ages before her great distinctive Confession, by the 
Fathers and Councils of the pure Church. We offer to our 
readers some testimony on both these points. 

John taught the doctrine of Christ's person which our 

i. aii things are Church confesses, when he said (John xiii. 3), 

given to Jesus «j esus knowing that the Father had given all 

according to His ° 

human nature, things into His hands, and that He was come 

John xiii. 3. from ^^^ and went tQ God . He rigetll fr()m gnp . 

per . . . and began to wash the disciples' feet." 

1. These words teach us what Jesus had: " All things." 
So in John iii. 35 : " The Father loveth the Son, and hath 
given all things into His hand." So in Matt. xi. 27, and 
Luke x. 22: "All things are delivered unto me of my 
Father." What a plenitude of possession is here involved, and 
what supernatural characteristics of person are necessary to 
their reception. Unlimited possession involves supreme power 
— and he cannot be omnipotent who is not omnipresent. The 



ALL THINGS ARE GIVEN TO CHRIST. 503 

Lutheran need not fear to attribute too much to his adorable 
Saviour when God himself gives to Him " all things." 

2. In these words of John is implied that Christ, according 
to his human nature, has all things. The name Jesus is not a 
name drawn from His divine nature, but was given to Him in 
His individuality after His incarnation. The text says, more- 
over, that the Father had given all things into His hand. Now, 
according to the divine nature of Christ, God can give Him 
nothing, for that divine nature in its own essence has all 
things absolutely. Hence, here, and everywhere that God is 
said to give Christ anything, or Christ is said to receive any- 
thing, it is given to Him according to His human nature, and 
received by Him according to His human nature. Christ, then, 
has received according to the one nature, to wit, the human, 
what He intrinsically possessed in the other, to wit, in the 
divine, or, as it has been expressed, Whatever Christ has in 
the one nature by essence, He partakes of in the other by grace 
— and this is the doctrine of our Church. 

3. The whole point of John's antithesis, indeed, turns upon 
this view of the person of Christ ; for his vein of thought is 
evidently this — that Jesus performed this act of touching 
lowliness, the washing of His disciples' feet, the act of a ser- 
vant, not in forgetfulness of His glorious majesty, and of the 
plenitude of His gifts, but fully conscious of them. Though 
He knew His own supreme glory as the one to whom the 
Father had given all things, He yet girded Himself, and bent 
to wash the feet of His loved ones. Now, if He had all things 
only according to the divine nature, there was no humiliation 
involved, for according to the nature which had the glory, He 
did not wash their feet — but as, confessedly, it was according to 
His human nature, bending His human form, and using His 
human hands to wash their feet, so must it have been accord- 
ing to that nature that He here humiliated Himself; and the 
point is, that though as a man He had given into His hands 
all things, and was thus as man infinitely glorious, yet as 
man, and in full consciousness of the glory which He shared as 
man, He humbled Himself to wash His disciples' feet. 

That the expressions which attribute the plenary possession 



504 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of all things to Jesus according to His human nature, are 
not to be deprived of the very fullest significance, becomes yet 
more clear when we look at the passages which specify in 
detail what are some of the things, " all " of which the 
ii. Jesus is om- Father has delivered to Him. Our blessed Lord 
nipotent accord- sayg f or example (Matt, xxviii. 18) : " All power 

ing to His human J J . 

nature. Matt, is given unto me in heaven and on parth." Now 
mark of whom this affirmation is made. It is made 
of One who stood before them confessedly a true man, coming 
with the step of man, speaking through the lips of man, with 
the voice of man, and saying: "All power is given unto me." 
Surely, if He had meant that His human nature was to be 
excluded from this personality He would have told His disci- 
ples so, for nothing could seem more clear than that the undi- 
vided Christ, the man as well as the God, affirmed this of Him- 
self. But it is furthermore manifest that what Christ here says, 
He says by preeminence of the human side of His person, for 
He says : " All power is given unto me," but to His divine 
nature, in its essence, nothing could be given. In virtue of that 
essence, it was necessarily omnipotent. Supreme power, there- 
fore, was conferred on the Mediator as to His human nature. 
And yet there could not be two omnipotences in the person of 
Christ, the one belonging to His divinity, the other to His 
humanity. The divine did not part with its omnipotence to 
the human, so that the divine now ceased to be omnipotent, and 
the human became in its own essence omnipotent. This would 
involve that the Godhead really ceased to be divine, and the 
human became essentially divine — both of which are absurd. 
As the Godhead, therefore, retains its essential omnipotence, 
and yet the human receives omnipotence as a gift, the result 
is inevitable. The one omnipotence pertains to the whole per- 
son — the divine possessing it essentially and of necessity, and 
in itself; the human having a communion or participation 
in it, in virtue of its personal union with the divine. Omnip- 
otence becomes no essential attribute of the human nature of 
Christ, but inheres forever in the divine, and is exercised by 
the human only because it is taken into the one person of the 
divine. 



JUS US IS OMNIPOTENT. 505 

This power which is given to the human nature of Christ is 
supreme — "all power in heaven and in earth ; " it is all-compre- 
hending, involving every kind of power throughout the uni- 
verse. It is a true omnipotence. To have all power, implies 
that the power shall be everywhere — but the power is not 
separable from presence of some kind. If the Saviour is 
almighty everywhere, He must exercise that omnipotence 
directly in His own person, or through a secondary agency — 
but as His person is a divine one, He needs no secondary 
agency, the very same person that is mighty to all things is 
present to be mighty. Yet, as if no conjecture, however direct 
or irresistible, might be the ground of our hope, He closes His 
glorious address to His disciples with the words : " Lo ! I am 
with you always, even unto the end of the world.'' He who 
uttered the promise fulfils it, but He who uttered it was man 
as well as God — and in fulfilling it, He fulfilled it as man as 
well as God. So irresistible is the necessity for this view, that 
writers who are not of the Lutheran Church have acknowl- 
edged it. Alford, for example, commenting on the words, 
Matt, xxviii. 20 : " Lo 1 I am with you," says, " I," in the fullest 
sense : " not the divine presence, as distinguished from the human- 
ity of Christ. His humanity is with us likewise. The pres- 
ence of the Spirit is the effect of the presence of Christ." But 
inference is hardly necessary. The power of omnipresence is 
a part of all power. 

In Matt. xi. 27, Christ defines the sphere of His possession. 
He has " all things " without exception ; He indicates the man- 
ner in which they are derived : " All things are delivered unto 
me," possessing them from eternity as God, I have received 
them in time as man ; He marks the person of the recipient : 
"All things are delivered unto me" the one divine-human per- 
son, whose natures form one inseparable person ; He draws the 
inference: "Come," therefore, "unto me," — the inseparably 
divine and human — " all ye that labor and are heavy laden, 
and Jwill give you rest." This one person, inseparably human 
and divine, calls to Him the sorrowing of every place and of 
every time, and promises in His own person, man as well as 
God, everywhere and evermore to give them rest. And there 



506 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

is no meaning, and no comfort in an incarnate Christ which 
does not rest in the conviction that He is approached and 
approaches both as man and as God. 

In John xvii. 5, our Lord says : " And now, Father, glorify 
thou me with thine own self, with the glory which 

Tho DerDetiril 

identity of I had with Thee before the world was." 

Christ's person. In tnis text i s i mp ii e( i i. That the person of 

John xvii. 5. . 

Christ is divine — His glory is a common glory 
with that of the Father ; " with thine own self," " with thee ;" 
and like the Father's, it is from eternity, before the world, that 
is, the creation, either in whole or in part "was." It is 
implied, 2. That the human nature is taken into the unity of 
this divine person. For Christ, true man, speaks of a glory 
which He had with the Father before the world was. The 
identity of person is involved throughout. The same person 
who was then incarnate, was once unincarnate ; the same per- 
son which was simply and unchangeably glorious in its essence, 
was now humbled according to the nature which it had 
assumed into its personality. It is implied, 3. That there is a 
true communion of properties, for we have Christ praying 
according to His human nature, that the Father may glorify 
Him according to that nature. According to His divine 
nature He could not pray, nor have anything given to Him. 
His prayer, then, means that He desires to be glorified accord- 
ing to His human nature, as He had been glorified in His divine 
nature before the world was. And this glory is not declara- 
tive, but essential, for it is a glory which He had antecedent 
to the creation with the Father Himself, not with angels, but 
before the world of men and angels had being. But even if it 
were declarative glory, all real declarative glory presupposes 
essential perfection. Our Saviour, then, prays that the plenary 
exercise of the attributes, and the plenary enjoyment of the 
majesty which belonged to Him as God, may be shared in by 
His human nature. 

In Colossians ii. 9, it is said : " In Him [Christ] dwelleth all 
the fulness of the Godhead bodily." The " fulness of the God- 
head " is wholly different from the "fulness of God." The 
" fulness of God " is that fulness of gifts and graces which 



TEE DOCTRINE IMPLIED. 507 

God imparts, and which believers have from Him. The ful- 
ness of the Godhead is the plenitude of the divine nature in 
all its attributes. This is here intensified by the word " all :" 
" all the fulness." The Godhead is incarnate through the second 
person of the Trinitv, and the whole second person 

r . V . . r . The Godhead 

of the Trinity dwells in Christ's humanity, which it dwelling in 
has united to itself as its own body. All the fulness ° h , rist n bodily - 

J m Col. ii. 9. 

of the Godhead cannot personally dwell in Christ 
and also personally be separate from Christ, for personality 
implies not simply presence, but far more ; it involves the most 
absolute union. If all the fulness of the Godhead in the second 
person of the Trinity dwells in Christ bodily, then there is no 
fulness of that Godhead where it is not so dwelling in Christ ; 
and as the human in Christ cannot limit the divine, which is 
essentially, and of necessity, omnipresent, the divine in Christ 
must exalt the human. The Godhead of Christ is everywhere 
present, and wherever present, dwells in the human personally, 
and, therefore, of necessity renders it present with itself. 

So thoroughly does this idea of the personal unity underlie 
the New Testament conception of Christ, that we m n A . 

± ' The Doctrine 

find it constantly assumed where no formal state- implied where 

, p ... -. m -, p , i • there is no formal 

ment of it is made, Two examples of this may statement. Matt. 
suffice. xvii - * 25 1 xii - 8 - 

"When (Matt. xvii. 25) our Lord claimed, as man, the exemp- 
tion from the duty of paying the Temple-tax, on the ground 
that He had the receiving right of royalty, and was exempt 
from the paying duty of the subject, it implied that His 
humanity was in such unity with His Godhead, that He could 
argue from the one to the other. If there were two persons, 
He must have argued : My Godhead is exempt, but my 
humanity is bound to the payment. But His argument is 
the very reverse : I am not bound as God, therefore I am not 
bound as man ; the logical link, of necessity, being : Because 
my Godhead has taken my humanity into personal unity with 
it. But if Christ participates in divine rights according to 
His humanity, He must participate in the divine attributes 
which condition those rights. This is the presupposition of 
that. That is the result of this. 



508 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

" The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day," (Matt, 
xii. 8 ; Mark ii. 28 ; Luke vi. 5,) that is, He has the dispensing 
power of the Law-giver in regard to the ceremonial law. But 
this He cannot have as Son of man, unless as Son of man He 
has a personal identity with the Son of God. 

These texts are but a little part of the testimony which 

might be cited. The faith of our Church grounded 

interpretation" upon them had been the faith of the Universal 

not novel, views Church for a^es. The earliest ages of the Church 

of the Fathers. . ° ° . .. 

are not, indeed, marked by dogmatic precision ot 
language. The sciolist who is not deeply read into their testi- 
mony is sure to misunderstand it, and in any case it is neces- 
sary to allow for lax phraseology and defective thinking. No 
existing system can find a perfect guaranty in the exact terms 
used by the ancient Church. Its testimony is to be construed 
on broader principles than those of a mousing verbal criticism. 
We must read the life of the ancient Church before we can 
comprehend its letter — and its letter, construed by its life, 
shows, with ever-increasing clearness, the underlying Christo- 
logical system which reached its scientific perfection in the 
theology of the Augsburg Confession, as developed in the 
Formula of Concord. The Church all along was feeling after 
an adequate confession of her faith in regard to the insepara- 
ble unity of the person of her Lord. Epiphanius had said : 
" The flesh acquired the glory of Deity, a heavenly honor, 
glory, and perfection, which it had not from the beginning, 
but received it in its union with God the Word." Cyril had 
said : " The Word had made common with its own body the 
good of its own nature." " As the Word is of God, so is the 
man of the woman — there is, therefore, of both one Christ, 
indivisible in Sonship, and in divine majesty."* Theodoret 
had said: "The nature assumed for us was participant of the 
same honor with that which assumed it." Damascenus had 
said : " The divine nature communicates its own excellencies 
to the flesh. The divine works are wrought through the body 

* Cyril in Joan. L. II. ch. xlix. Cyril means that the humanity of Christ, "man," 
is derived from his mother, " woman," as his divine nature, " Word," is begotten 
of the Father from eternity. 



VIEWS OF THE FATHERS. 509 

as their- organ." Athanasius had said : " Whatever the Scrip- 
ture declares that Christ had received in time, it affirms with 
reference to His humanity, not with reference to His deity." 
Basil the Great had said : " When it is declared by our Lord : 
' All power is given unto me,' the words are to be understood 
of Him in His incarnation, not in His Deity." " As the Son 
of God has been made participant of flesh and blood, so the 
human flesh of our Lord has been made participant of Deity.''* 
Ambrose had said : " All things are subject to Him according 
to His flesh. Christ, according to His humanity, shares the 
throne of God." " Thou art everywhere (ubique), and stand- 
ing in our midst art not perceived by us." " One Christ is every- 
where (ubique) ; here existing complete (plenus), and there 
complete." f Chrysostom had said: "The angels are com- 
manded to adore Him according to the flesh." " Christ is 
beyond the heavens, He is beyond the earth, He is wherever 
He wills to be ; wheresoever He is, He is entire ; wheresoever 
He is, and wheresoever thou art who seekest Him, thou art 
in Him whom thou seekest.";): Theophylact had said : "The 
Father hath given all things into the hand of the Son accord- 
ing to His humanity." " He fills all things with His rule and 
working, and this He does in His flesh, for He had filled all 
things before with His divinity. "§ " The holy body of Christ 
. . is communicated in the four parts of the world. . . He 
sanctifies the soul of each with His body, through His flesh, 
and exists entire and undivided in all everywhere." || (Ecume- 
nius had said : " He received as man what He had as God. 
As man it was said to Him: 'Sit at my right hand,' for as 
God he had an eternal government." " By His divinity He had 
aforetime filled all things, but being incarnate He descended 
and ascended, that with His flesh He might fill all things." T 
Jerome** had said: "The Lamb is everywhere (ubique)." 

*Basilius in Homil. de Nativ. Christi. 

f Ambrosius on Luke x. Lib. vii. ch. 47, and on Heb. iv. 

$ Horn, de John Bapt. 

§ Theophylact on Eph. iv. 10. 

|| In cap. xix. John. 

^[ (Ecumenius on Eph. iv. 10. 

** Adv. Vigilantium. 



510 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Augustine had said : " The humanity itself after the resurrec- 
tion obtained divine glory." " ' The Son of man which is in 
heaven.' He was on earth, and yet said that He is in heaven 
— and what is more, that ' the Son of man is in heaven,' that 
He might demonstrate that there is one person in two natures. 
. . There are not two Christs, two Sons of God, but one per- 
son, one Christ." " Why shouldst thou separate man from 
God, and make one person of G-od, another of man, so that 
there would be, not a Trinity, but a Quaternity — for thou, a 
man, art soul and body, and as soul and body is one man, 
so God and man is one Christ ? "* The Church grounds 
herself, then, in this great doctrine, on the direct testimony 
of God's Word, accepted in the sense in which it had long 
been understood by the best interpreters of the Ancient 
Church. 

So irresistible, indeed, is the logic of the case, and so strong 
is the historical testimony by which the argument is sustained, 
that we find the truth conceded in whole or in part by some 
of the ablest representatives of the Churches which have most 
violently opposed the Lutheran doctrine of the person of 
Christ. Bellarmine, and other Polemics of the Church of 
Rome, in the blindness of their purpose to stamp our doc- 
trine with the reproach of heresy, have violently assailed the 
Lutheran doctrine of the personal omnipresence of Christ 
according to both natures. But, in addition to the Fathers, 
Lutheran doc- men whose names have been held in honor in that 
trine; i. Adrms- Qhurch %t a later period have acknowledged, in 

bions of some wri- ■*- ° ' 

ters of the church whole or part, what modern Romanists deny. 
of Rome. HlJG0 DE g> y ICT0RE .j- gays . ei ^ mm the nature of 

its union with divinity, the body of Christ has this dignity, that 
it is at one time in many places." Biel J says : " ]STot only can the 
body of Christ be in diverse places definitively and sacramentally, 
but . . can by divine power be in many places circumscriptively." 
Nor have there been entirely wanting, even among modern 
Romanists, some who have conceded the truth of the Lutheran 

* Augustine: De verb. Apostol. Serm. xiv.; Do. De Tempore. Serm. cxlvii. 
f Lib. II. de Sacram. Pars viii. ch. xii. 
X IV. Sent. Dist. xi. 



ADMISSIONS OF CALVINISTIC WRITERS. 511 

doctrine of the fellowship of properties. Faber Stapulensis 
says : " Wherever Christ is, He is incarnate. But without His 
body He is not incarnate. That is a great faith which knows 
that Christ is bodily where He is sacramentally. But that is 
a greater faith that knows that He is absolutely everywhere 
bodily." "The body of Christ is wherever the Logos is, for 
' the Word was made flesh.' The Word is never without the 
flesh, nor the flesh without the Word."* Paul Kemer affirms : 
" It is most easy, by many and firm reasons, to prove that Christ 
is everywhere with His body," and so also Ertlius, Francus, 
and BARRADius.f 

Biel held, indeed, in common with many of the scho- 
lastics, that by divine power any natural body 2. Admissions of 
could be simultaneously present in many places. Meta P n J' slcians - 
Nor has this theory lacked supporters of great name in modern 
times. Among the Calvinistic metaphysicians, the proposition 
that " the existence of one and the same body in many places is 
not contradictory," has been maintained by Gisbert Voetius, 
and defended by his sons, Paul and Daniel. Leibnitz^ the 
greatest metaphysician, in many respects, since Aristotle, says 
that it cannot with reason be affirmed that a real presence of the 
body of Christ in many places involves a contradiction, inasmuch 
as no one has yet explained in what the essence of body consists. 
This theory, maintained, as it has been, by some of the 
acutest thinkers of our race, shows, at least, that here is a 
question which cannot be determined by mere speculation. 

IsTor are we destitute of admissions, on the part of Calvinistic 
writers, which, in spite of the explanations which 

■ . . 3. Admissions 

seem meant to take away with one hand what is of calvinistic 
granted by the other, are virtual concessions of wnters - 
the truth of the Lutheran view. Thus Beza § says : " If you 
will, I grant beside, that the humanity of Christ is also pres- 
ent, but in another respect, that is, not in itself, or by its 

* Faber Stap. in 1 Cor. xii. 
f Quoted in Gerhard's Loci (Cotta). iii. 517. 

% See Letters of Leibnitz and Pelisson, and L.'s Discours d. 1. Conform, de la 
fois avec la raison, g 18, and Cotta's Note on Gerhard, iv. 548. 
I Opera. 659. 



512 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

own essence, but inasfar as it coheres by personal union with 
the Logos, which is everywhere." Zanchius * : " The flesh of 
Christ can be said to be . . omnipotent, . . everywhere present 
. . not in its own proper essence, . . but in the person which 
is common to it, with the divine nature." "All the learned 
and pious grant that the human nature of Christ is personally 
omnipotent, everywhere present. Not incongruously is it said 
that the flesh is personally omnipotent and everywhere present, 
. . for it is such in the person." The Zurich Theologians f 
say : " Christ, that is, that person who is at the same time 
true God and true man, is present with all things, governs 
heaven and earth, and that according to each nature (utramque 
naturam). For the Son of God, after He assumed human 
nature, wheresoever He is present and acts, is present and acts 
as Christ, that is, as a person who is at once God and man." 
Sohnius : " If the humanity is not wherever the divinity is, to 
wit, personally, or in personal subsistence, that is, if there be 
not everywhere one person of the two natures, or if these two 
natures be not everywhere united, there must, of necessity, be 
two persons." That these writers are consistent with these 
premises, in their inferences, we do not pretend ; but this 
does but the more show how great is the pressure of that 
truth, which, knowing the difficulty of explaining it away, 
they are yet obliged to concede. 

In the great practical question of the undivided adoration 

worship of of the humanity and Deity of Christ, there is no 

Christ according cons j s teiit position between the Lutheran doctrine 

to His human -i 

nature. and the Socinian. The Calvinistic divines, while 

they show in various ways that there is great difficulty in har- 
monizing their view of the person of Christ with the worship of 
Him in His human nature, are yet, for the most part, happily 
inconsistent. ~No man can really pray to the undivided Christ 
without in heart resting on the Lutheran doctrine of His per- 
son. Either the human nature of Christ is in inseparable unity 
of person with the divine nature, or it is idolatry to worship 
Christ according to the human nature. This the Socinian con- 
troversialists in New England saw at once, and their arguments, 

*Lib. de Relig. Prsefat. ad Lect. Lib. II. de Incarnat. 201. fApolog. 108. 



THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 513 

which assumed the Nestorianizing views of New England as 
orthodox, and which the Orthodox there defended as Scriptural, 
were consequently never fairly met. One source of the rapid 
and deadly triumphs of Socinianism in New England was the 
unscriptural and lax views which the system claiming to he 
orthodox held of the person of Christ. 

From the views which have been presented of the Lutheran 
doctrine of Christ's person, our readers will under- 
stand with what reservation they must accept Dr. Chris e t; T^eat 
Gerhart's statement, which follows the one on which misapprehension 

7 corrected. 

we have dwelt. He says that the Lutheran doc- 
trine " involved the communicating of divine attributes to the 
human nature of Christ, in virtue of which His human nature 
was not limited to heaven, nor to any place at a time, but, like 
the divine nature, was present in all places at the same time 
where the Sacrament of the Altar was instituted and adminis- 
tered." For evidence of the correctness of this proposition, 
the reader is referred to " Herzog's Encyclopedia, by Dr. Bom- 
berger." We would protest against the authority of Herzog's 
Encyclopaedia on any question involving a distinctive doctrine 
of Lutheranism. Great as are the merits of that almost indis- 
pensable work, it is yet an unsafe guide on any question which 
involves in any way the so-called Evangelical Union. The arti- 
cle on the Communicatio Idiomatum is written by Dr. Schenkel, 
who is one of the last men to be selected for such a work. In 
its whole texture it is Unionistic, and in some of its state- 
ments, demonstrably incorrect. The article has been very 
admirably translated by Kev. Dr. Krotel, for the Abridgment 
of Herzog, edited by Dr. Bomberger. "We do not find, how- 
ever, in the part of the article cited by Dr. Gerhart, nor indeed 
in any part of it, a voucher for his definition, especially for the 
statement that our Church holds that the human nature of 
Christ is present " like the divine nature." Dr. Schenkel, how- 
ever auxious he might be to make out a case against our doc- 
trine, could not have ventured on a statement which is not 
only inconsistent with the whole theory of our Church, but is 
contradicted, in express terms, in the Formula of Concord. 
Here we will say, as we said before, if Dr. Gerhart will show 

33 



514 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

us a solitary passage in our Confession, or in any approved 
author of our Church, which says that the human nature of 
Christ is present " like the divine nature" we will confess that 
we have too hastily pronounced upon his statements, and will 
consent to sit at his feet as a learner in the doctriues of our 
Church. Our Confessions, as we read them, again and again 
assert the very opposite, and we will undertake, for every line 
in the Heidelberg Catechism which repudiates the doctrine 
that the human nature of Christ is present like the divine, to 
produce twenty from our Confessions which repudiate it with 
equal strength. 

As Dr. Gerhart has cited no passage from any Lutheran 
authority which asserts the doctrine he imputes to us, it might 
be sufficient for us simply to meet his statement with this 
denial, but we will go further, and cite some passages of the 
Formula of Concord in which it is expressly repudiated. 

The Formula of Concord, in its Vlllth Article, after assert- 
ing that the " divine virtue, life, power, and majesty are given 
to the human nature assumed in Christ," goes on to say : 1. " This 
declaration, however, is not to be accepted in such sense, as if 
these were communicated, as the Father has communicated to 
the Son, according to His divine nature, His own essence, and 
all divine properties, whence He is of one essence with the 
Father, and co-equal." 

2. " For Christ only according to His divine nature is equal 
to the Father: according to His human nature He is under 
God." 

3. " From these statements it is manifest that we imagine 
no confusion, equalizing or abolishing of the natures in Christ. 
For the power of giving life is not in the flesh of Christ in 

THE SAME WAY IN WHICH IT IS IN HlS DIVINE NATURE, to wit, as 

an essential property: this we have never asserted, never 
imagined." 

4. " For that communion of natures, and of properties, is not 
the result of an essential, or natural effusion of the properties 
of the divine nature upon the human: as if the humanity of 
Christ had, them subsisting independently and separate from divin- 
ity ; or as if by that communion the human nature of Christ had 



THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 515 

laid aside its natural properties, and was either converted into 
the divine nature, or was made equal in itself, and per se to the 
divine nature by those properties thus communicated ; or that 
the natural properties and operations of each nature were identical, 
or even equal. For §iese and like errors have justly been 
rejected and condemned by the most ancient and approved 
councils on Scriptural grounds. For in no respect is there to 
be made, or admitted, any conversion, or confusion, or equal- 
izing, either of the natures in Christ, or of their essential 
properties." 

5. " By these words, ' real communication, really to commu- 
nicate,' we never designed to assert any physical communica- 
tion, or essential transfusion (by which the natures would be con- 
founded in their essences, or essential properties), in the sense 
in which some, craftily and maliciously, doing violence to 
their conscience, have not hesitated, by a false interpretation, 
to pervert these words and phrases, only that they may put 
upon sound doctrine the burden of unjust suspicion. We 
oppose these words and phrases to a verbal communication, 
since some feign that the communication of properties is no 
more than a phrase, a mode of speech, that is, mere words and 
empty titles. And they have pressed this verbal communica- 
tion so far that they are not willing to hear a word of any other." 

6. "There is in Christ that one only divine omnipotence, 
virtue, majesty, and glory, which is proper to the divine nature 
alone. But this shines and exerts its power fully, yet most 
freely in, and with, the humanity assumed. " 

7. " For it is so as in white-hot iron, — the power of shining 
and burning is not a twofold power, as if the fire had one such 
power, and the iron had another peculiar and separate power 
of shining and burning, but as that power of shining and burn- 
ing is the property of the fire, and yet because the fire is united 
with the iron, and hence exerts that power of burning and shin- 
ing in and with the iron, and through that white-hot iron, so, 
indeed, that the glowing iron has from this union the power 
both to burn and to shine, and yet all this is without the 
change of the essence or of the natural properties either of the iron 
or of the fire" 



516 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

The reader will please observe that this illustration is neither 
designed as a proof of the doctrine, nor as an exhibition of the 
mode of the union, but simply as an aid in removing a misun- 
derstanding of the definition of terms. 

8. "We believe, teach, and confess ttiat there occurred no 
such effusion of the Majesty of God, and of all His properties, 
on the human nature of Christ, or that anything was with- 
drawn from the divine nature, or that anything from it was so 
bestowed on another, that in this respect it no longer retained 
it in itself ; or that the human nature, in its own substance and 
essence, received a like majesty, separate from the divine 
nature and essence." 

9. " For neither the human nature in Christ, nor any other 
creature in heaven or in earth, is capacious of divirie omnipo- 
tence in that way, to wit, that of itself it could have an 
omnipotent essence, or have the properties of omnipotence in 
itself and per se." 

10. " For in this way the human nature in Christ would be 
denied and completely changed into divinity, which is repug- 
nant to our Christian faith, and the teaching of the prophets 
and apostles.' 5 

11. "We reject, therefore, and with one consent, one mouth, 
one heart, condemn all errors departing from the sound doc- 
trine we have presented ; errors which conflict with the writ- 
ings of the apostles and the prophets, with the received and 
approved Ancient Creeds, and with our cherished Augsburg 
Confession. These errors we will briefly and summarily recite : 

" That the human nature of Christ, because of the personal 
union, is confounded with the divinity, or transmuted into it : 

" That the human nature in Christ in the same way as 
divinity, as an infinite essence, and by an essential virtue or 
property of its own nature, is everywhere present : 

"That the human nature. in Christ has become equal to 
.the divine nature in its substance or essence, and essential 
properties : 

"That the humanity of Christ is locally extended in all 
places of heaven and earth, an affirmation which cannot be 
made with truth, even of divinity : 



TEE PERSON OF CHRIST. 517 

" These errors, and all others in conflict with sound doctrine, 
we reject, and we would exhort all devout people not to attempt 
to scrutinize this deep mystery with the curious search of 
human reason, hut rather with the Apostles of our Lord to 
exercise a simple faith, closing the eyes of human reason, and 
bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of 
Christ. But most sweet, most firm consolation, and perpetual 
joy may they seek in the truth that our flesh is placed so high, 
even at the right hand of the majesty of God, and of His 
almighty power. Thus shall they find abiding consolation in 
every sorrow, and be kept safe from every hurtful error." 

With these beautiful words our Formula of Concord closes 
its matchless discussion of the doctrine of our Redeemer's per- 
son, and with them we close, imploring the pardon of that 
ever-present and ever-precious Saviour for our poor utterances 
on such a theme, and beseeching Him to bless even this 
unworthy offering to the strengthening of some faint heart in 
the faith once delivered to the saints. 



XI. 

BAPTISM. 

(AUGSBURG CONFESSION. ART. IX.) 



THE Lutheran doctrine of Baptism may be stated summarily 
in the following propositions : 

I. " We confess one Baptism for the remission of sins."* 

II. " The vice of origin — the inborn plague and hereditary 
sin — is truly sin, condemning, and bringing now also eternal 
death upon all that are not born again by Baptism and the 

Holy Spirit, "f 

III. u The ministry has been instituted to teach the Gospel 
and administer the Sacraments ; for by the "Word and Sacra- 
ments, as by instruments, the Holy Spirit is given. "J 

IV. " Unto the true unity of the Church it is sufficient to 
agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the adminis- 
tration of the Sacraments." 

V. " It is lawful to use the Sacraments administered' by evil 
men — and the Sacraments and Word are efficacious by reason 
of the institution and commandment of Christ, though the 
priests who impart them be not pious. "§ 

VI. " The churches among us with common consent teach 
concerning Baptism : 

"1. That it is necessary to salvation. 
" 2. That by Baptism the grace of God is offered. 
" 3. That children are to be baptized. 

"4. That by Baptism they are offered and committed unto 
God. 

* Symb. Nicsenum. f Aug. Conf. ii. 2. J Do. v. 1, 2. g Do. vii. 2 ; viii. 1, 2. 

518 



BAPTISM. 519 

" 5. And that thus offered by Baptism, they are received into 
God's favor." 

VII. The churches among us, with one consent, condemn the 
Anabaptists, who 

"1. Allow not the Baptism of children, and who teach that 
it is not right ; 

" 2. And who affirm that children are saved without Bap- 
tism."* 

Our Lord, in the course of His earthly ministry, authorized 
His disciples to baptize (John iv. 1, 2), and previous to His 
ascension, commanded them to make disciples of all the 
nations, by baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Matt, xxviii. 19). 

mi • -r» ^ • • i i tt Baptism. 

The rite of Baptism, thus enjoined by our Lord, 
has been the subject of various disputes in the Christian 
world. It is the object of this Dissertation to exhibit the faith 
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in regard to the points of 
dispute. Over against all who deny the divine institution and 
perpetuity of Baptism, our Church maintains that " God has 
instituted it," and that it is obligatory and necessary through- 
out all time (Aug. Conf. , Art. V. , VII. , VIII. , IX. , XIII. , XIV.), 
so that without it the Church cannot exist in the world. 
Serious differences of opinion, however, exist in Christendom, 
even among those who recognize the perpetuity and obligation 
of Baptism, as to what are essential to Baptism, even as to its 
outward part. For, while all are agreed that the use of water, 
and of the Word, is essential, some parts of the Christian 
world maintain that the essential mode of Baptism is that of 
the total immersion of the body, insomuch that this immersion 
is absolutely necessary, and positively demanded by our Lord, and 
the application of water in any other way whatsoever is no 
Baptism. The Lutheran Church does not hold that immer- 
sion is ESSENTIAL TO BAPTISM. 

That the Augsburg Confession uses the word " Baptism " in 
its then current sense is indisputable. Baptism was commonly 
administered in the sixteenth century by pouring, and sprink- 
ling, as well as by immersion. In the Roman Catholic Agenda 
(Mentz), 1513, the Rubric says : " He shall pour (fundat) the 

*Aug. Conf. Art. ix. 



520 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

water thrice upon the head of the child, so that it shall reach 
his head and shoulders." The Augshurg Ritual (1587) directs 
that the priest, " taking water from the font with his right 
hand, shall gently pour it (perfundat) over the head and body 
of the child three times." The Roman Ritual directs, as the 
normal mode, that the water shall he poured. If immer- 
sion had been regarded by the confessors as a divine ele- 
ment of Baptism, they could not but have so stated. 
They declared that men could not be in Church unity 
who did not agree as to the administration of the Sacra- 
ments. That they do not object to the existing ideas of the 
mode of Baptism shows that they received them. The Augs- 
burg Confession speaks of the various washings, made in 
various ways, under the Old Dispensation, as " the Baptisms 
of the Law."* Melanchthon, in the Instruction to the Vis- 
itors (1528), says: " Baptism shall be observed as hitherto, "f 
Luther, in the XVII. Schwabach Articles (1529), designates 
the prevailing mode, that mode which he had in his own mind 
in using the word Tauf, as " Begiessen," pouring or sprinkling.^ 
These articles are the basis of the doctrinal part of the Augs- 
burg Confession, and fix the sense of its terms. In Luther's 
own form of Baptism (1523), which is not to be confounded 
with his abridgment and translation of the Romish form, he 
directs that the water shall be poured upon the child. " It 
was the custom," says Funk,§ " at that time, to pour water 
all over the child, as Bugenhagen tells us: 'The pouring 
(Begiessen) in Baptism — the pouring over (ubergiesset) the 
head and shoulders of the child . . is seen among us over all 
Germany.' " 

Attempts have, indeed, been made to show that Luther, at 
Luther and the least, held the necessity of immersion, and that the 
Jewess. Lutheran Church either held it with him, or was 

inconsistent in rejecting it. We shall show how groundless 
these statements are. One of the passages most frequently 
appealed to, in the attempt to implicate Luther, is found in 

* Augs. Conf. xxvi. 22. " The Baptisms of the Law washed the members, gar- 
ments, vessels." Luther. Oper. Lat. Jen. 524. 

f Corp. Kef. xxvi. 64. % Do.do. 156. \ P. 115. 



LUTHER AND THE JEWESS. 521 

Walch's Edition of his works, X., 2637. In regard to this, the 
following are the facts : 

1. The passage referred to is from a letter of Luther, writ- 
ten from Cohurg, July 9th, 1530, in reply to an Evangelical 
pastor, Henry Genesius, who had consulted him in regard to 
the Baptism of a Jewish girl. It will he noted from the date 
that the letter was written a few months after the issue of the 
Catechisms, in which it has been pretended, as we shall see, 
that he taught the necessity of immersion. 

2. The letter given in Walch, is also in the Leipzig edition 
of Luther (XXII. , 371), and is not in either edition in the 
original language, hut is a translation, and that from a defec- 
tive copy of the original. The original Latin is given in De 
Wette's edition of Luther's Briefe (IV., 8), and contains a most 
important part of a sentence which is not found in the Ger- 
man translation. The letter in "Walch cannot, therefore, be 
cited in evidence, for it is neither the original, nor a reliable 
translation of it. 

3. The whole letter shows that the main point of inquiry 
was not as to whether the girl should be baptized in this or 
that mode, but what precautions decency demanded during 
the baptism, provided it were done by immersion. 

4. Luther says : " It would please me, therefore, that she 
should . . modestly have the water poured upon her (Mihi 
placeret, ut, . . verecunde perfunderetur), or, if she sit in the 
water up to her neck, that her head should be immersed with 
a trine immersion." (Caput ejus trina immersione immergeretur.) 

5. An immersionist is one who contends that Baptism must 
be administered by immersion. The passage quoted is decisive 
that Luther did not think Baptism must be so administered. 
He represents it as pleasing to him, best of all, that the girl 
should have the water applied to her by pouring ; or that, if 
she were immersed, greater precautions, for the sake of decency, 
should be observed, than were usual in the Church of Rome. 
It is demonstrated by this very letter, that Luther avas not 

AN IMMERSIONIST. 

6. In suggesting the two modes of Baptism, Luther was 
simply following the Ritual of the Romish Church. In the 



522 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Romish. Ritual the direction is : " Baptism may be performed 
either by pouring, immersion, or sprinkling ; but either the 
first or second mode, which are most in use, shall be retained, 
according as it has been the usage of the churches to employ 
the one or the other, so that either the head of the person 
to be baptized shall have a trine ablution — that is, either the 
water shall be poured upon it (perfundatum — Luther quotes 
the very word), or the head shall be immersed (ut trina ablu- 
tione caput immergatur) — Luther again quotes almost verbatim. 
In the Roman Ritual, furthermore, for the Baptism of adults, 
it is said : " But in the churches where Baptism is performed 
by immersion, either of the entire body, or of the head only, the 
priest shall baptize by thrice immersing the person, or his head " 
(ilium vel caput ejus). It is a mistake, as these words demon- 
strate, to suppose that even if immersion be practised, there 
must needs be a submergence of the whole body. The Roman 
Ritual leaves the choice between the immersion of the whole 
body, and the immersion of the head. The immersion of the 
head was performed in the case of infants, usually by dipping 
the back of the head into the font. Thus in the Ambrosian 
Ritual : " He shall dip the back of the child's head (ter occiput 
mergit) three times in the water." In the case of adults, the 
solemn immersion of the head could take place, in the same 
way, without any sort of immersion of the rest of the body ; 
or, the person could go into the water up to the neck, and the 
solemn immersion of the head alone be made by the minister. 
It is evident that in the second case, equally with the first, the 
baptismal immersion was of the head only. The submergence 
to the neck was a mere natural preparation for the other. It 
is in this second manner that Luther directs, in case the 
Jewess was immersed at all, that the officiating minister 
should immerse her head only. She was to seat herself in the 
bath, and the only religious immersion was not that of her 
whole body (as Rome permits, and the Baptists, if consistent, 
would prescribe), but of her head only (ut caput ejus immergere- 
tur). Luther, so far as he allowed of immersion at all, was not 
as much of an immersionist as the Ritual of Rome might have 
made him, for he does not hint at the immersion of the whole 



LUTHER AND THE JEWESS. 523 

body of the Jewess by the minister. An immersionist contends 
that the whole body must be immerged by the officiating min- 
ister ; not, indeed, that he is to lift the whole body and plunge 
it in, but the whole immersion is to be so conducted as to be 
clearly his official work, the person being led by him into the 
water, and the immersion completed by his bending the body, 
and thus bringing beneath the surface what was up to that time 
uncovered. Luther preferred, if there was to be an immersion, 
that the head only, not the body, should be immersed by the 
minister (not ilium sed caput ejus). Even to the extent, 
therefore, to which he allowed immersion, Luther was no 
immersionist. 

7. If Luther could be proved, by this letter, to be an immer- 
sionist, it would be demonstrated that he derived his view 
from the Romish Church, and held it in common with her. 
In like manner, the Church of England, the Episcopal 
Churches of Scotland and of the United States, and the 
Methodist Churches, would be carried over to the ranks of 
immersionists, for they allow the different modes. But these 
Churches are confessedly not immersionist ; therefore, Luther 
was no immersionist. 

8. Whatever Luther's personal preferences may have been 
as to mode, he never even doubted, the validity of Baptism by 
pouring. But immersionists do not merely doubt it, they abso- 
lutely deny it ; therefore, Luther was no immersionist. 

9. An immersionist is one who makes his particular mode 
of Baptism a term of Church communion, and an article of 
faith. Luther was in a Church which did not prescribe 
immersion as necessary — never made it an article of faith ; 
therefore, Luther was no immersionist. 

10. Finally, the letter of Luther shows that he preferred 
pouring. He says expressly that it would please him that the 
water should be poured upon her, and gives this the first place ; 
and his directions in regard to the immersion, are given only 
in the supposition that that mode might be decided upon — u if 
she sit, etc., her head shall be immersed," etc., si sedens. 

Whatever, therefore, may be the difference between the 
doctrine of the necessity of immersion, and the " doctrine 



524 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of immersion," we feel safe in affirming that Luther held 
neither. 

From Luther's Larger Catechism, by confounding the very 

Luther's Cate- plain distinction between allowance, or even prefer- 

chisms. ence £ a m0( j e5 an( j a De ii e f i n its necessity, the 

evidence has been drawn that our Confessions teach the Bap- 
tist doctrine of immersion. 

Yet this very Catechism, in express terms, repudiates any 
such doctrine, and acknowledges, in the most decisive manner, 
what the Baptist doctrine denies — the validity of other modes 
than immersion. Mark these two sentences from the Larger 
Catechism : " Baptism is not our work, but God's. For thou 
must distinguish between the Baptism which God gives, and 
that which the keeper of a bath-house gives. But God's work, 
to be saving, does not exclude faith, but demands it, for with- 
out faith it cannot be grasped. For in the mere fact that thou 
hast had water poured on thee, thou hast not so received Bap- 
tism as to be useful to thee ; but it profits thee when thou art 
baptized with the design of obeying God's command and insti- 
tution, and in God's name of receiving in the water the salva- 
tion promised. This neither tbe hand nor the body can effect, 
but the heart must believe."* In these words there is an 
express recognition of pouring or sprinkling (for the word used 
by Luther covers both, but excludes immersion) as modes of 
Baptism. 

But there is another passage yet more decisive, if possible: 
" We must look upon our Baptism, and so use it, as to 
strengthen and comfort us whenever we are grieved by sins 
and conscience. We should say: I ani baptized, therefore the 
promise of salvation is given me for soul and body. For to 
this end these two things are done in Baptism, that the body, 
which can only receive the water, is wet hy pouring, and that, 
in addition, the word is spoken that the soul may receive it."f 
Here not only is the recognition of pouring (or sprinkling) 

* Catech. Maj. Miiller, 490, 36, das Wasser ilber dich giessen. The Latin is, 
" aqua perfundi." 

j- Do. 492, 45. German: " Der Leib begossen wird." Latin: "Corpus aqua 
pcrfundatur." 



LUTHER'S CATECHISMS. 525 

explicit, but if the words were not compared with other 
expressions of Luther, it might be argued, that he and our 
symbols went to the opposite extreme from that charged upon 
them, and, instead of teaching that immersion is necessary, 
denied its validity. So far, then, is the charge from being 
verified, that we are authorized to make directly the opposite 
statement. Luther and our Confessions repudiate utterly the 
Baptist doctrine of the necessity of immersion. 

In the original of the Smaller Catechism there is not a word 
about immersion in a passage sometimes referred to. It is 
simply, "What signifies this Water-Baptism?" (Wasser Tauf- 
fen.j " Immersion " is but a translation of a translation. The 
same is the case with the Smalcald Articles. The original 
reads : " Baptism is none other thing than God's "Word in the 
water (im Wasser)." There is not a word about immersion. We 
do not rule these translations out because they at all sustain 
the allegation built on them. Fairly interpreted, they do not ; 
but we acknowledge the obvious rule accepted in such cases — ■ 
that the originals of documents, and not translations of them, 
are the proper subjects of appeal. A translation can carry no 
authority, except as it correctly exhibits the sense of the origi- 
nal. Even the general endorsement of a translation as correct, 
by the author of the original, is not decisive on a minute point 
which he may have overlooked, or have thought a matter of 
very little importance. A clergyman of our country translates 
the commentary of an eminent German theologian, and receives 
from him a warm letter of thanks, strongly endorsing the accu- 
racy of the translation. Yet, not only in a possible deviation 
of the translation from the original, but in any matter of 
doubt, however slight, the original alone would be the source 
of appeal. As the Lutheran Church accepts Luther's version 
of the Bible, subject to correction by the original, so does she 
accept any translation of her symbols, however excellent, sub- 
ject to correction by the original. 

But, even if the principle were not otherwise clear, the facts 
connected with the translation of the different parts of the 
Symbolical Books would be decisive on this point. The trans- 
lation of the Smalcald Articles, made in 1541, by Generanus, a 



526 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

young Danish student of theology, at Wittenberg, and who 
was an intimate friend of Lather, was confessedly admirable, 
pithy, and Luther-like. The translation which Selneccer pre- 
pared, or selected, for the Book of Concord, 1580, was an entirely 
new one, very inferior to the old,* and this, after undergoing 
two sets of changes, is the one now ordinarily found in the 
Latin editions of the Symbol. This is one of the translations 
to which appeal is made, in the face of the original, and lan- 
guage is used which leaves the reader under the impression 
that these articles were translated under Luther's eye, and the 
translation approved by him. 

The German translation of the Apology, found in the Editio 
Princeps of the German Concordia, and in most other editions, 
adds some things which are not in the Latin, and omits some 
things which are there. Which is the authority, Melanchthon's 
Latin, or Jonas' German, if a dispute arise as to the meaning 
of the Apology ? 

3. The Larger Catechism was first translated by Lonicer, 
faithfully, and into good Latin. The second translation was 
made by Opsopseus, and this was changed in various respects 
by Selneccer, and thus changed, was introduced into the Book 
of Concord. 

4. The Smaller Catechism was first rendered into Latin by 
an unknown hand, then by Sauermann. " This translation 
seems to have been introduced into the Concordien-buch, but 
toith changes" says Kollner. 

The principle involved, which no honest scholar would try 
to weaken, is well stated by Walch, in these words : f "It is 
by all means proper to know what was the original language 
of each of our Symbolical Books, since it is manifest that from 
that, not from translations, we are to judge of the genuine and 
true meaning of any book. What they teach we ought to see, 
not in versions, but in the original language itself, especially 
where the matter or meaning seems involved in some doubt. 
Versions do not always agree entirely with the writings as 

* " Diffuse and feeble." F. Francke : L. S. Eccl. Luth. Pars Sec. xi. 
" Luther's ideas are often inundated in it." — Hase. 
| Introd. in Lib., Symbol, 61. 



LUTHER'S CATECHISMS. 527 

their authors composed them ; as the facts themselves show is 
the case in our Symbolical Books also." 

The allusions of Luther to the outward mode are never 
found in his definition of Baptism. His allusions to immersion 
come, in every case, long after he has defined Baptism. His 
definition of Baptism, in the Smalcald Articles, is : " Baptism 
is none other thing than the Word of God in the water, 
enjoined by his institution." His definition of Baptism in the 
Larger Catechism, is thus : " Learn thou, when asked, What 
is Baptism ? to reply, It is not mere water, but water em- 
braced in God's word and command. It is a mere illusion 
of the Devil when our New Spirits of the day ask, How 
can a handful of water help the soul?" And then comes his 
powerful vindication of this " handful of water " in its con- 
nection with the Word. In the Smaller Catechism, to the 
question, " What is Baptism ? " the reply is : " Baptism is not 
mere water, but that water which is comprehended in God's 
command, and bound up with God's Word." Nowhere does 
any Symbol of our Church say that Baptism is immersion, or 
even allude to immersion when it speaks of that which consti- 
tutes Baptism. 

That the word " begiessen," by which Luther indicates one 
of the modes of Baptism, can only indicate pouring or sprink- 
ling, and by no possibility immersion, every one even moder- 
ately acquainted with German very well knows. The proper 
meaning of begiessen, as given by Adelung, is, " Durch Giessen 
nass machen" i. <?., to wet by pouring or dropping. Campe's 
definition is, " Durch Darangiessen einer Flussigkeit nass 
machen J' i. e., to wet by the pouring on of a fluid. Frisch 
defines it: " Perfundi, affundendo madefacere" i. e., to pour 
over, to wet by pouring upon. The Grimms define it by, u Per- 
f under e" to pour over. When followed by " mit" governing 
a noun, the " mit " is always to be translated " with," " mit 
Wasser begiessen" " to wet with water by pouring it." When 
followed by " avf" the " avf" means " upon." When Adler, 
Meissner, and others give " moisten," " bathe," " soak," and 
similar words as an equivalent, it is in such phrases as, " to 
bathe or moisten (begiessen) the hand with tears." You may 



528 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

use " begiessen " when the hand is bathed by the tears which 
pour or drop upon it ; but if the hand were bathed by immers- 
ing it in w^ater, a German would no more use " begiessen " to 
designate that act than we would use "pour." We affirm 
w T hat every German scholar knows, that with any allusion, 
direct or indirect, to the mode in which a liquid can be 
brought into contact w T ith an object, " begiessen " never means, 
and never can mean, either in whole or inclusively, "to 
immerse." It is so remote from it as to be antithetical to it, 
and is the very word used over against the terms for immer- 
sion, when it is desirable distinctly to state that Baptism is 
not to be performed by immersion. 

But if " begiessen " could ever mean to immerse, or include 
that idea, we shall demonstrate specially that it has not that 
force in Luther's German. Luther uses the word giessen 
upwards of fifty times in his translation of the Bible, and 
invariably in the primary sense of pour. The word " begiessen" 
in which the prefix " be " simply gives a transitive character 
to the "giessen" — as we might say " bepour," — he uses ^.ve 
times. Twice he uses it in the Old Testament, to translate 
" Yah-tzak," which, in twenty other passages he translates by 
" giessen" to pour. The two passages in which begiessen is 
used are, Gen. xxxv. 14, " Jacob poured (begoss) oil thereon," — 
hardly, we think, immersed his pillar of stone in oil ; Job 
xxxviii. 88, " "Who can stay the bottles of heaven, when 
the dust groweth (Marg. Hebr. is poured, begossen) into hard- 
ness," — hardly meaning that the compacting of the mire is 
made by immersing the ground into the showers. Three 
times Luther uses " begiessen " in the New Testament, 1 
Cor. iii. 6, 7, 8, " Apollos watered : he that watereth 
(begossen, begeusst)" — referring to the sprinkling, or pouring 
of water on plants. So Lather also says: "Hatred and 
wrath are poured over me (ueber mich begossen)" Jena 
Ed. v. 55. 

We have shown that the general usage of the language does 
not allow of the interpretation in question. We have shown 
that, if it did, Luther's German does not. We shall now 
show that if both allowed it anywhere, it is most especially 



LUTHER'S CATECHISMS. 529 

not allowable in the Catechism, nor in Luther's use of it any- 
where, with reference to Baptism. 

Now for " giessen" and "begiessen" in their reference to Bap- 
tism by Luther, in the Catechism and elsewhere, can they 
include not exclude immersion ? Let us try this. 

1. Larger Catechism : Dass du Icissest das Wasser ilber dich 
giessen {quod te aqua verfundi sinis). We affirm that these words 
have, to any one who knows anything of German, but one pos- 
sible meaning, and that, like the verbal English translation of 
the words " that thou lettest the water pour over thee," the 
German cannot mean " thou lettest thyself be dipped into the 
water." 

2. What mode of Baptism Luther had in his mind is clear, 
furthermore, from the words in immediate connection with 
those we have quoted, for he says : " This (the work of the 
heart) the bent hand (Faust*) cannot do, nor the body," the 
connection showing the thought to be this : neither the bent 
hand of the administrator of Baptism, — bent to gather up and 
pour the water, — nor the body of the recipient, can take the 
place of faith, in securing the blessings of Baptism. 

3. This is rendered clear again, from the words, " Was 
sollt ein hand voll Wasser s der Seelen helfen ? " What can a 
handful of water help the soul ? This shows that the " hand- 
ful of water " was connected with a received mode at that 
time in the Lutheran Churches. 

If the sense of begiessen, as applied to Baptism, were obscure, 
(as it is not — no word more clearly excludes immersion) this 
passage would settle it. 

4. But there is abundance more of evidence on this point. 
In Luther's own Ritual for Baptism, the officiating minister 
"pours the water," {geusst Wasser auf) and says: " Ich taufe 
dich." 

5. In the Article of Torgau, the fanatics, who in the Cate- 
chism are characterized as asking, " What can the handful of 
water do," are represented as calling Baptism " miserable 
water, or pouring " {begiessen). 

* As in Isaiah xl. 12, " Wer misset die Wasser mit der Faust." Eng. Ver.: " Who 
hath measured the water in the hollow of his hand? " 
34 



530 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

6. In the letter of July 9th, 1530 : " That standing, she 
should have the water poured upon her (perf under etur), or sit 
ting, her head should be immersed (immergeretur)" surely not 
both the same. 

7. In the Wittenberg Liturgy of 1542, those are spoken of 
who do " not dip (tauchen) the infants in water, nor (noch) pour 
it upon them (begiessen)." 

But Luther says the body is baptized ; therefore, of necessity, 
it is urged, by immersion. When St. Paul describes Baptism 
in the words " having our bodies washed with pure water," 
he can hardly be said to prove himself an immersionist. 
Luther's words are: "These two things are done in Baptism, 
that the body, which is able to receive nothing besides the 
water, is wet by pouring, and, in addition, the Word is spoken, 
that the soul may embrace it." Body and soul are two things 
in Luther's mind, and it is not hard to see that the body does 
receive what is poured on the head. 

But if the criticism of the word " body " stood, it would do 
no good, for water can be applied to the entire body by pour- 
ing (or even by sprinkling), as was largely, though not uni- 
versally, the usage in our Church. The water was poured so 
copiously in some cas^s as to wet the entire body of the infant. 

Luther, in speaking of the permanence of the Baptismal 
Covenant, and of the power of returning, by repentance, to its 
blessings, even after we fall into sin, says: u Aber mit Wasser 
ob man sick gleich hundertmal lasset ins Wasser senken, ist dock 
nicht mehr denn Eine Taufe." This has been thus translated 
and annotated : " 'But no one dares to begiessen us with water 
again ; for if one should be sunk in water (ins ivasser senken) a 
hundred times, it is no more than one Baptism.' Here senken 
is used along with begiessen, and to explain it." 

But neither the translation, nor interpretation, is accurate. 
u Darf" does not mean "dares," but means " needs," as the 
Latin has it, " non est necesse." The " ob gleich" has been 
dropped, those important words which the Latin properly ren- 
ders "etsi" "for even though one should be sunk." " Senken " 
is not used to explain begiessen. Luther does not mean that to 
" pour upon with water " is equivalent to being " sunk in water 



LUTHER'S TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. 531 

a hundred times." The point is this : After the one Baptism, 
the repentant sinner needs not that water should be poured 
upon him again. No re-pouring can make a re-baptism. Nay, 
if he were not merely poured upon, but sunk into the water, 
not once, but a hundred times, still, in spite of the quantity of 
the water, and the manifold repetition of the rite, there would 
be but one Baptism. There is an antithesis, not a parallel, 
between " pour " and " sink," and between " once " and a 

" HUNDRED TIMES. "* 

Luther's translation of the words connected with Baptism, 
proves that he was no immersionist. Luther's traus- 

1. Immersionists say that Baptisms should al- &tion of the 
ways be translated immersion. Luther, throughout 

his translation of the Bible, never translates it immersion (unter- 
tauchung), or dipping (eintauchung), or plunging (versenkung), 
but always and exclusively, Baptism (Taufe). 

2. Immersionists translate Baptismos immersion. Luther 
translates it either Baptism or washing. Mark vii. 4 — Bap- 
tist Version : Immersion of caps, etc. Luther: washing. Do. 
8 — Baptist Version : immersions ; Luther : washing. 

3. a. Immersionists say that Baptizo should always be trans- 
lated to immerse. Luther never translates it by immerse, nor 
any of its equivalents, but with the exceptions we shall men- 
tion in a moment, by Taufen, to baptize. 

b. Immersionists say, moreover, that en following baptizo, 
should be translated in, " I immerse you in water ; " " he shall 
immerse you in the Holy Ghost," etc. Luther translates as 
does our English version : "I baptize you with (mit) water ; " 
" he shall baptize you with the Lloly Ghost," etc. 

c. Luther translates 1 Cor. xv. 29, " "What shall they do 
which are baptized above the dead," and explains itf of admin- 
istering Baptism " at the graves of the dead" in token of faith 
in the resurrection. The words of Luther are : " They are bap- 
tized at the graves of the dead, in token that the dead who 
lay buried there, and over whom they were baptized, would 
rise again. As we also might administer Baptism publicly 
in the common church-yard, or burial place. "J Immersionists 

* 497. 78. f Leipz. Ed. X. 384. J Auslegung, Anno 1534. 



06V CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

generally prefer to consider the Baptism here as metaphorical , 
and immerse the live saints in sorrows. 

4. Immersionists say that the radical idea of Baptizo, in its 
New Testament use, is not that of washing. Luther repeatedly 
translates it to wash. We will present some of these transla- 
tions in contrast. Translation on Immersionist principles : 
Judith xii. 8, " Judith went out and immersed herself at a 
spring near the camp;" Luther: " and washed herself in the 
water." Ecclesiasticus xxxiv. 25 — Immersionist: "He that 
immerses himself after touching a dead hody ; " Luther: " That 
washeth himself." Mark vii. 5 — Immersionist : " (The Phari- 
sees and all the Jews,) when they come from the market, unless 
they immerse themselves, eat not ; " Luther : " wash them- 
selves." Luke xi. 88 — Immersionist: "That he had not 
immersed himself ; " Luther: " washed himself." 

5. The Baptist version renders Baptistes, Immerser ; Luther, 
always Tauffer, Baptist. 

6. Immersionists say that Bapto always properly means, to 
dip. Luther translates Rev. xix. 13 : " He was clothed with 
a vesture, sprinkled with Mood." 

These proofs are enough to demonstrate that, judged as a 
translator, Luther loas no immersionist. 

But it has been urged that Luther has used taufte, where 
our traDslators have " dipped," 2 Kings v. 14. The fact is, 
however, that this verse alone is enough to dispose of the false 
theory. Our translators have "dipped," it is true ; but as 
Luther did not translate from our authorized version, that 
proves nothing. That same authorized version has " dipped " 
in Eev. xix. 13, where Luther has " besprenget" "sprinkled." 
The fact is, that if the ravages in the German, on the part of 
those who are determined to make Luther a Baptist, or an 
Anabaptist, against his will, are not arrested, they will not 
leave a word in that language, once deemed somewhat copious, 
which, will express any mode of reaching the human body by 
water, except by dipping ; " begiessen " and " taufen " are dis- 
posed of, and " besprengen " can be wiped out exactly as " tau- 
fen " has been. The question, however, is worth a moment's 
attention, Why Luther used the word " taufte" in 2 Kings v. 



LUTHER'S TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. 533 

14 ? The word " ta-bhcd " is used sixteen times, but Luther 
never translated it " taufen" except in this place. It is also 
noticeable that in this place alone does the Septuagint translate 
"ta-bhal" by " baptizo." The Vulgate considers it as equiva- 
lent in meaning to " ra-hhatz " of the preceding verses, and 
translates it u lavit" washed. The Targum considers the two 
words as equivalent. So does the Syriac, and so the Arabic. 
Pagninus' version gives to both the same meaning, but marks 
the distinction between their form by translating " ra-hhatz" 
u lavo" and " ta-bhal" " abluo." In his Thesaurus, he gives 
as a definition of " ta-bhal " " lavare, baptizare" and translates 
it in 2 Kings v. 14, " lavit se" washed himself. Origen, and 
many of the Fathers, had found in the washing of Naaman a 
foreshadowing of Baptism. De Lyra, Luther's great favorite 
as an expositor, expressly calls this washing (2 Kings v. 14) a 
receiving of Baptism. Luther saw in it the great idea of Bap- 
tism — the union of water with the Word, as he expressly tells 
us, in commenting on the passage, in his exposition of the cxxii. 
Psalm.* The word " taufte" therefore, is to be translated here, 
as everywhere else in Luther's Bible, not by immerse, but by 
"baptize." Naaman baptized himself, not dipped himself in 
Jordan, is Luther's meaning. The Hebrew, ta-bhal, Luther 
translates fourteen times, by tauehen, to dip, in accordance 
with its accepted etymology. But he also translates what he 
regarded as its participle, by color or dye, Ezek. xxiii. 15. 
According to the mode of reasoning, whose fallacy we are 
exposing, wherever Luther uses " taufen" we may translate it 
" to dye ; " for the etymological force of a word, according to 
this, is invariable, and all true translations of it must have the 
same meaning. 

Bapto Luther translates by " tauehen and eintauchen" to dip, 
dip in ; but he also translates by " besprengen " (Rev. xix. 13), 
to sprinkle : but, according to this mode of reasoning, tauehen 
and taufen both being equivalents, taufen is sprinkling, and Bap- 
tism is sprinkling, and dipping is sprinkling. By the way in 
which it is proved that Taufe is immersion, may be proved that 
both Taufe and immersion are sprinkling. Baptizo Luther never 

* Leipz. Edit. V. 461. 



534 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

translated by tauchen, nor by any word which would be under- 
stood by the readers of his version to mean immersion. What- 
ever may be the etymology of Taufe, its actual use in the German 
language did not make it equivalent to immersion. Sprinkling 
(JBesprengen) or pouring (Begiessen) were called Taufe. If 
Luther believed that the actual (not the primary or etymo- 
logical) force of the word made immersion necessary, he was 
bound before God and the Church to use an unambiguous 
term. It is not true that " tauchen " or " eintauchen " had, 
either then or now, that very trifling and vulgar sense which, 
it is alleged, unfitted them over against " taufen" to be used 
to designate immersion. Luther uses them in his Bible, and, 
when in his Liturgies he means to designate immersion, these 
words are the very words he employs. 

Luther used the ancient word Taufen, because, in the fixed 
usage of the German, Taufen meant to baptize. "Whatever 
may have been the etymology of it, we find its ecclesiastical 
use fixed before the ninth century. Otfried so uses it, A. D. 
868. Eberhard and Maass, in their great Synonymik of the 
German, say : " After Taufen was limited to this ecclesiastical 
signification, it was no longer used for Tauchen, and can still 
less be used for it now that Taufen (Baptism) is no longer per- 
formed by Eintauchen (immersion)." 

The prepositions which Luther used in connection with 
" taufen" show that he did not consider it in its actual use as a 
synonym of immerse : to baptize with water (mit), with the 
Holy Ghost (mit). John baptized with water (mit) ; baptized 
under Moses (unter) with the cloud {mit). It is not English to 
talk of immersing with water ; nor would it be German to fol- 
low " tauchen " or " eintauchen " by " mit;" nor any more so to 
use " mit " after " taufen" if taufen meant to immerse. 

Furthermore, Luther has twice, 1 Cor. xv. 29, " To baptize 
over the dead (fiber)" which he explains to refer to the baptism 
of adults over the graves of the martyrs. 

But Luther has not left us to conjecture what he considered 
the proper German equivalent for baptizo and baptismos, in 
their actual use — how much their actual use settled as to the 
mode of Baptism. Five times only he departs from the render- 



LUTHER'S TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE. 535 

ing by Taufe, or Taufen, but not once to use " tauchen," but 
invariably to use Waschen, to wash. 

Judith xii. 8: TJnd unisch sich im Wasser, washed herself; 
(Gr. : JEbaptizeto ; Yulg. : JBaptizat se). 

Sir. xxxiv. 30 (25) : Wer sich wascht, he who washes himself; 
(Gr. : Baptizomenos ; Yulg.: Baptizatur), what avails him this 
washing? sein Waschen? (Gr.: Loutron). 

Mark vii. 24 : Ungewaschen (aniptois) Handen — sie waschen 
(nipsontai), sie waschen sich (baptizontai), Tische zu waschen (bap- 
tismous) ; vii. 8 : Zu waschen (baptismous). 

Luke xi. 38; Bass er sich nicht vordem Essen gewaschen hatte 
(ebaptiste). * 

He translates baptizo as he translates nipto and louo. 

Here is the demonstration, that while Luther believed, in 
common with many philologists, that the etymological force 
(Laut) of baptismos and baptisma is " immersion," its actual 
force in Biblical use is " washing," without reference to mode. 
Luther treats it as having the same generic force with louo, 
pluno, and nipto, all of which he translates hy the same word, 
waschen, just as our authorized version translates every one of 
them, baptizo included, by wash. With the etymology of the 
Greek goes also the etymology of the German. The primitive 
mode of washing, in nations of warm or temperate countries, 
is usually by immersion. Hence the words in many languages 
for the two ideas of dipping and washing come to be synonyms 
— and as the word washing ceases to designate mode, and is 
equally applied, whether the water be poured, sprinkled, or 
is plunged in, so does the word which, etymologically, meant 
to dip. It follows the mutation of its practical equivalent, 
and comes to mean washing, without reference to mode. So 
our word, bathe, possibly implies, primarily., to immerse. But 
we now bathe by " plunge," " douch," or " shower-bath," and 
we know that the wider use of the word " bathe " is very old 
in English, as, for example, Chaucer* says : 

"His heart -blood hath bathed all his hair." 

If the baptismal commission had been given in English, and 

*Knightes Tale, v. 2,009. 



536 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the word used had been Bathe, the person who 'admitted that 
the word " bathe " covered all modes of applying water, but 
who, in a case confessedly a matter of freedom, would prefer 
immersion as the mode, because it corresponds with what he 
believes to be the etymology of bathe, as well as with its actual 
use, would do what Luther did in a cognate case, in 1519, of 
which we are about to speak ; but the inference that either 
regarded the word in question as meaning to immerse, or as a 
synonym of it, would be most unwarranted. 

An attempt has been made to show that Luther was an 
Luther's et y - inimersionist, by citing his views of the etymology 
moiogies of the both of the Greek and German* words involved. 
The citation relied on for this purpose, is from the 
sermon : Vom Sacrament der Taufej* which has been thus 
given: u Die taufe (baptism) is called in Greek, baptismos ; in 
Latin, immersion, that is, when anything is wholly dipped 
(ganz ins wasser tancht) in water which covers it." Further, 
" according to the import of the word Tauf the child, or any 
one who is baptized (getauft wird), is wholly sunk and immersed 
(sonk und tauft) in water and taken out again ; since, without 
doubt, in the German language, the word Tauf is derived from 
the word Tief because what is baptized (taufet) is sunk deep in 
water. This, also, the import of Tauf demands." 

This translation is not characterized by accuracy. For 
example, it renders both " Laid " and " Bedeutung " by the 
one word import, when Luther expressly distinguishes between 
" Laut " and " Bedeutung ; " the former referring to the etymo- 
logical or primary literal force of a word, and the latter to the 
moral significance of a rite. 

Further, it mutilates and mistranslates the words, which, 
literally rendered, are : "Yet it should then be, and would be 
right (und war recht) that one sink and baptize entirely in the 
water, and draw out again, the child, etc." How different the 
air of Luther's German from that of the inaccurate English. 

There is another yet more significant fact. It omits, out of 
the very heart of the quotation, certain words, which must 
have shown that the idea that " begiessen " includes immersion 

* Leipzig Edition, xxii. 139. 



LUTHER'S ETYMOLOGIES OF THE WORDS. 537 

is entirely false. The two sentences which are quoted are con- 
nected by these words, which are not quoted : " And although 
in many places it is no longer the custom to plunge and dip 
(stossen und tauchen) the children in the font (die Tauf), but 
they are poured upon (begeusst) with the hand, out of the font 
(aus der Tauf)." Here, over against immersion, as the very 
word to mark the opposite mode, is used that " begiessen" 
which, it is pretended, refers to immersion. It seems to us 
inconceivable that any one could read the passage in the origi- 
nal, without having the falsity of the former position staring 
him in the face. 

On the whole passage we remark : 

First. That the sermon was published in 1519, among the 
earliest of Luther's writings, ten years before the Catechism, 
and when he had not yet made the originals of Scripture the 
subject of his most careful study, and when his views were 
still largely influenced by the Fathers and Romish theology. 
It was published five years before he began his translation of 
the New Testament, and more than twenty before he gave his 
Bible its final revision. This raises the query whether his 
views, after the thorough study of the Bible, connected with 
his translating it, remained unchanged. We have given, and 
can give again, ample proof that if Luther's meaning in 1519 
implies the necessity of immersion, his opinion had undergone 
a total change before 1529, when the Larger Catechism, whose 
words are in question, was published. 

Secondly. The passage is not pertinent to the proof of that 
for which it is urged. Luther designs to give what he sup- 
poses to be the etymological force of Baptismos and Taufe — not 
to show their force in actual use. That Luther affirms, not 
that Baptismos and Taufe in actual use mean " immersion,'' 
but only etymologically, is clear. 1. From the whole vein 
of argument. As an argument concerning the etymology of 
the words, it is pertinent ; as an argument on the actual use 
of either, it would be in the highest degree absurd. 2. From 
his limitation by the word " Laut" which means " Etymo- 
logy," as Luther himself translates it in the Latin, " Etymol- 
ogia" 3. By the fact that twice, in these very sentences, 



538 CONSERVATIVE REFORM ATI OK 

Luther uses Taufe not in the sense either of immersion or of 
Baptism, but of "font." 4. That in his translation of the 
Scriptures he uses " Taufe " for " Baptism," without limita- 
tion to mode. 5. That in his translation of the Romish 
Ritual, and wherever else he wishes to indicate the idea of 
immersion, he never uses taufe or taufen, always tauchen or 
untertauchung . 6. That in the only Baptismal Service prop- 
erly Luther's own, he directs the water to be poured, with the 
words, IcH taufe. 7. That he repeatedly recognizes the validity 
of Taufe by pouring, which would be ridiculous, if Taufe in 
actual use meant immersion. 

Third. The Latin of Luther's Sermon on Baptism, in the 
Jena Edition, an edition wmich excludes everything of his 
which was not officially approved, makes very plain the drift 
of the words quoted. It says : " The noun, Baptism, is Greek, 
and can be rendered (potest verti) in Latin, Mersio" — "That 
(i. e., the immersion and drawing out) the etymology of the 
word (Mymologia nominis — Laut des Wortleins) seems to de- 
mand (postulare videtur)." From Luther's opinion on the 
etymology of the words Baptism and Taufe, the inference is 
false that he held that Baptism, in the actual use of the word, 
meant immersion, and that the German word Taufe, in actual 
use, had the same meaning. To state the proposition is to 
show its fallacy to any one familiar with the first principles of 
language. 

1. That the etymological force and actual use of words are 
often entirely different every scholar knows. Carnival is, ety- 
mologically, a farewell to meat. Sycophant, etymologically 
and properly, means a fig-shower ; miscreant is a misbeliever ; 
tinsel means " sparkling," (Thetis, with the " tinsel -slippered 
feet," Milton) ; carriage (Acts xxi. 15) means things carried ; 
kindly, in the Litany, according to kind ; painful, involving 
the taking of pains ; treacle, something made from wild beasts. 
The German schlecht, bad, originally meant good ; selig, blessed, 
is the original of our English word silly ; the word courteous 
has its root in a word which meant a cow-pen. 

2. The very essence of the philological argument against the 
necessity of immersion, turns upon this fact. If to admit that 



LUTHER'S ETYMOLOGIES OF THE WORDS. 539 

JBapto and JBaptizo may, etymologically, mean to dip in, is to 
admit that, in their actual use, they mean exclusively to dip 
in, then the argument against the Baptists, on the part of 
many, is over. 

3. The English words Baptism and baptize are simply Greek 
words in an English shape. As this argument puts it, they 
also mean, throughout our authorized version and our whole 
usage, exclusively immersion, or to immerse. So the Baptists 
contend as to their etymological and native force ; hut as they 
concede that such is not the actual use of them in English, 
even they, when they translate anew, give us " immersion " 
and "immerse." 

4. If the interpretation of Luther, we are contesting, stands, 
Luther was an immersionist, did teach that immersion is the 
synonym of Baptism and is necessary, did hold the " Baptist 
doctrine of immersion ; " but it is admitted that Luther did 
none of these, therefore this interpretation cannot stand. The 
argument makes Luther to be theoretically an immersionist, 
and only saved by hypocrisy, or glaring inconsistency, from 
being an Anabaptist in practice. The Martin Luther which 
this new philology has given us is a disguised Anabaptist. 
The positions are inconsistent with each other, and the argu- 
ments for them self-confuting. 

What is the real meaning of Luther's words ? It is that in 
its etymological and primary force (Laut), the German term 
Taufe, like the Greek baptis?nos, the Latin mersio, means immer- 
sion, but he does not say, and there is abundant evidence that 
he did not believe, that in actual use, either Taufe or baptis- 
ma means exclusively immersion, but, on the contrary, means 
" washing" without reference to mode. We believe that many 
scholars of anti-Baptistic schools will concede that Luther was 
right in his position as to etymology, as all intelligent Baptists 
will, and do, concede that the etymological and primary force 
of any word, may be entirely different from that it has in 
actual use. 

2. Luther, in 1519, drew the inference that it would be 
right and desirable that the mode of washing should conform 
to the etymological and primary force, as well as to the actual 



540 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

use of the word. That it would he right, if the Church pre- 
ferred so to do, is, we think, undisputahle ; that it is desirable, 
is, we think, very doubtful, and we can prove that such was 
Luther's attitude to the mode when the Catechisms were writ- 
ten. That immersion is necessary, Luther denied in express 
terms, in his book on the Babylonish Captivity of the same 
period (1519). 

3. Luther, in 1519, under the influence of the Romish Lit- 
urgy, and of the writings of the Fathers, believed that the 
symbolical significance of Baptism, as pointing to the drown- 
ing and death of sin, though essentially unaffected by the 
mode, is yet brought out more clearly in immersion, and at 
that era so far preferred it. In his later Biblical Era, to which 
his Catechism belongs, there is ample evidence that this prefer- 
ence was no longer cherished. 

This, then, is in brief the state of the case. The point of 
Luther's whole argument, in 1519, is, that inasmuch as immer- 
sion corresponds with the etymology of Baptism, as well as with 
its actual general use, which embraces every kind of washing, 
and as a certain signification common to all modes, is most 
clearly brought out in immersion, it would be right, and so far 
desirable, that that mode, though not necessary, but a matter 
of Christian freedom, should be adopted. Then, as always, he 
placed the mode of Baptism among the things indifferent, and 
would have considered it heresy to make the mode an article 
of faith. In the Church of Rome, some of the older rituals 
positively prescribe immersion ; and in the ritual now set forth 
in that Church, by authority, there is a direction that, " Where 
the custom exists of baptizing by immersion, the priest shall 
immerse the child thrice." Luther, in his Sermon in 1519, 
expresses his preference for immersion, not on the ground of 
any superior efficacy, but because of its etymology, antiquity, 
and significance as a sign : and when he alludes to the fact 
that the children, in many places, were not so baptized, he 
does not express the least doubt of the validity of their 
Baptism. 

In his book on the Babylonish Captivity, which appeared 
in 1520, declaring his preference again for the same mode, he 



LITURGIES OF LUTHER AND LUTH. CHURCH. 541 

expressly adds: " Not that I think it (immersion) necessary."* 
But this claim of necessity, and this only, is the very heart of 
the Baptist doctrine. The strongest expressions in favor of 
immersion occur in Luther's earliest works, and his maturer 
preference, as expressed in later works, seem to have heen no 
less decided for pouring as an appropriate mode. Thus in his 
Commentary on Genesis, one of his latest and ripest works, 
he says : " The water which is poured (quse funditur) in Bap- 
tism is not the water given by God as the Creator, but given 
by God the Saviour, "f 

We will now look at the testimony furnished on the point in 
question by the Liturgies of Luther and the Lutheran Church. 

1. The Taufbuchlein of Luther, 1523, is not a Lutheran 
Eitual, but avowedly only a translation of a 

. , . , . -r. . The Liturgies 

Romish service. He declares, in the Preface to it, of Luther and of 
that there was much in it which he would have t heL " tneran 

Church. 

desired to remove, but which he allowed to remain 
on account of the consciences of the weak, who might have 
imagined that he wished to introduce a new Baptism, and 
might regard their own Baptism as insufficient. That in this 
Ritual, therefore, the direction given to dip the child (tauchen) 
only proves that the particular Romish Ritual followed by 
Luther had that Rubric. 

2. Bat after this Translation, later in this same year, 1523, 
Luther issued his own directions for Baptism : Wie man recht 
and verstandlich einen Menschen zum Christenglauben taufen 
soll.\ This document, in the older editions of Luther's works, 
has been erroneously placed under 1521. The Erlangen edi- 
tion, the latest and most critical ever issued, gives it its true 
place, under 1523. In this direction, how rightly (recht) and 
intelligently {verstandlich) to baptize, Luther says : " The 
person baptizing pours the water (geusst wasser auff), and 
says, Ego Eaptizo te" that is, in German, Ich tauf dich (I bap- 
tize thee). Pouring, and pouring alone, is described as Bap- 

*De Captiv. Babylon. Eccles. Jena Edit., II. 273. " Non quod necessarium 
arbitrer." 

fOn ch. xxviii. Vol. iii. 91. 

X Leipz. xxii. 227. Walch, x. 2,622. Erlangen xxii. 168. 



542 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

tism, and positively prescribed in the only Ritual of Baptism 
which is properly Luther's exclusive work. 

3. In 1529, the year in which the Catechisms of Luther 
appeared, in which it is pretended that " the Baptist doctrine 
of immersion " is taught, he wrote the Seventeen Articles of 
Schwabach, or Torgau,* -which became the basis of the doc- 
trinal Articles of the Augsburg Confession. In the Ninth 
Article of these, he says : We baptize with water (mit Wasser), 
— and Baptism is not mere miserable water, or sprinkling and 
pouring (begiessen). 33 Here again the begiessen, the applying of 
the water to the person, not the immersing of the person in 
water, is exclusively spoken of as the mode of Baptism. 

4. In the Liturgy of Wittenberg,f Luther's own home 
(1542), dipping and pouring are placed on the same footing in 
every respect. "Ins wasser tauchen — sie damit begiessen." 

5. In the Liturgy of Halle, 1543,;): the administrator is 
expressly left free to use either pouring or dipping. " Zwis- 
chen dem Begiessen und Eintauchen wird die Wahl gelassen." 

6. Bugenhagen, in the conjoined work from Luther and 
himself (1542), designing to comfort mothers who had lost 
their children, says that Baptism of children, by pouring, was 
prevalent in the Lutheran Churches of Germany (das begiessen, 
siehet man noch bet uns uber ganz Deutschland). 

7. The Liturgy of the Palatinate of the Rhine, etc., 1556, of 
which the original edition lies before us, says : " "Whether 
the child shall have water poured on it once or thrice, be 
dipped or sprinkled, is a matter of indifference (inittelmdssig). 
Yet, that all things may be done in the Church in good order, 
and to edification, we have regarded it as proper that the child 
should not be dipped (gedaucht), but have the water poured 
upon it (begossen werden). 33 And in the Rubric : " Then shall 
the minister pour water (begiesse) on the child." 

8. The Liturgy of Austria, 1571, directs the Baptism to be 
performed by copious pouring or sprinkling. § The later usage 
is so well known, that it is not necessary to multiply citations. 

*Leipz. xx. 22. Walch xvi. 778. Erlangen xxiv. 321. 

f Consistorial Ordnung, 1542 ; Richter K. 0. I. 369. % Do. II. 15. 

§ " Mit Wasser reichlich begiessen, besprengen." 



LITURGIES OF LUTHER AND LUTH. CHURCH. 543 

"We shall close this part of our discussion with the words of 
two well-known authors of the Lutheran Church in America. 
Dr. Schmucker, in his Popular Theology, says, very truly : " The 
question is not whether Baptism by immersion is valid ; this 
is not doubted. . . But the question is whether immersion is 
enjoined in Scripture, and consequently is an essential part of 
Baptism, so that without it no Baptism is valid, though it 
contains every other requisite. On this subject the Lutheran 
Church has always agreed with the great majority of Christian 
denominations in maintaining the negative, and in regarding 
the quantity of water employed in Baptism, as well as the 
mode of exhibiting it, not essential to the validity of the ordi- 
nance." " The controversy on this subject (the mode of apply- 
ing water in Baptism) has always been regarded by the most 
enlightened divines, including Luther, Melanchthon, and Chem- 
nitz, as of comparatively inferior importance." 

Dr. Benjamin Kurtz, in his work on Baptism, after showing 
very conclusively that Luther was not an immersionist, closes 
his discussion with these words : " We leave our readers 
to judge for themselves, from the foregoing extracts, what 
amount of credit is due to the objection made by some of our 
Baptist brethren, that Luther believed in the necessity of sub- 
mersion to the exclusion of effusion, or that he was not decidedly 
in favor of children's being baptized. To our more enlightened 
readers toe may owe an apology for making our extracts so copious, 
and dwelling so long on this subject ; but the less informed, who 
have been assailed again and again by this groundless objec- 
tion, without ability to refute it, will know better how to 
appreciate our effort." 

It is hardly necessary to show that these views of the mode 
of Baptism were held by all our old divines. A few citations 
will suffice : 

Chemnitz : * " The verb Baptizein does not necessarily import 
immersion. For it is used, John i. 33, and Acts i. 5, to desig- 
nate the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. And the Israelites 
are said, 1 Cor. x. 2, to have been baptized unto Moses, in the 

*On Matt, xxviii. 19. Exam. Concil. Trid. Ed. 1653. See, also, Harmon. 
Evang. C. xvi. 



544 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

cloud and in the sea, who, nevertheless, were not immersed 
into the sea, nor dipped into the cloud. Wherefore, Paul, a 
most safe interpreter, says that to baptize is the same as to 
purify or cleanse by the laver of water in the Word, Eph. v. 
26. Whether, therefore, the water be used by merging, dip- 
ping, pouring, or sprinkling, there is a baptizing. And even 
the washing of hands, couches, and cups, in which water was 
employed, whether by merging, dipping, or pouring, Mark vii. 
4, is called Baptism. K"or in the Baptism instituted by Christ, 
is there needed such a rubbing of the body with water as is 
needed to remove the filth of the flesh, 1 Pet. iii. 21. Since, 
therefore, our Lord has not prescribed a fixed mode of employ- 
ing the water, there is no change in the substantiate of Bap- 
tism, though in different Churches the water is employed in 
different modes." 

Flactus Illybjcus : * " Baptizo, by metalepsis, signifies, to 
wash, bathe (abluo, lavo). Hence, Mark vii. 4, says : ' The Jews 
have various Baptisms (i. e. washings) of cups and pots ; ' aud 
1 Peter iii. 21, says: ' Our Baptism is not the putting away 
of the filth of the flesh.' Heb. vi. 2, the word Baptism refers 
to the purifications and washings under the old dispensation." 

Stephen Gerlach f says : " Herein Baptism is analogous to 
circumcision, which, though local, yet availed, by its internal 
action, to render the entire person acceptable to God. Thus 
the laver of regeneration and renewal is most efficacious, 
whether the person baptized be entirely merged, or dipped, or 
some portion only of the body be sprinkled, only so that he be 
baptized with water, in the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 

Gerhard : % "JBaptismos and Baptizein are employed to desig- 
nate any kind of ablution, whether it be done by sprinkling, 
pouring, or dipping." 

Quenstedt: "Baptism, in general, signifies washing, or 
ablution, whether it be done by sprinkling, pouring, dipping, 
or immersion." 

The question of the outward mode in Baptism, is far less 

*Clavis, S. S. f On Matt, xxviii. 19, in Osiander. 

J Loci. Ed. Cotta ix. 68. 



INTERNAL EFFICACY OF BAPTISM—CONTEXT. 545 

serious than the questions as to the internal efficacy of Bap- 
tism, its essence, its object, and results. As closely connected 
with the view of our Church on these points, we shall present 
some facts in connection with that fundamental Illternal effi . 
Scriptural phrase in regard, to Baptism. Our cacy of Baptism. 

n • ° T . ... „ "Born of water 

Saviour says to JNicodemus, John m. .6 : " Lx- and of the spirit." 
cept a man be born of water and of the Spirit, ] ' The Context 
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." Does he refer 
in these words to Baptism? We think that no one ever 
could have doubted that there is such a reference, unless he 
had some preconceived theory of Baptism with which the 
natural meaning of these words came in conflict. The con- 
text and the text alike sustain and necessitate that interpre- 
tation which was the earliest, which was once and for ages 
universal, and to this hour is the general one, — the interpre- 
tation which accepts these words as setting forth the Chris- 
tian doctrine of Baptism. We have said the context proves 
this. We will give a few illustrations which seem to us per- 
fectly conclusive on this point: 1. Baptism, in consequence 
of the ministry of John the Baptist, was, at the time of the 
interview between our Lord and Mcodemus, the great absorb- 
ing matter of interest in the nation. The baptizing of John 
was the great religious event of the time. The subject of 
Baptism, in its relation to the kingdom of God, was the 
grand question of the hour, and there was hardly a topic on 
which Mcodemus would be more sure to feel an interest, and 
on which our Lord would be more likely to speak. 

2. The fact that John baptized was regarded as evidence that 
he might claim to be the Christ ; in other words, it was a set- 
tled part of the convictiou of the nation that the Messiah would 
baptize, or accompany the initiation of men into His kingdom 
with the use of water. " The Jews sent priests and Levites to 
ask John, Who art thou ? And he confessed, and denied not ; 
but confessed, I am not the Christ," John i. 20. Not a word 
had they uttered to imply that they supposed that he claimed 
to be the Christ, but his answer, to what he knew to be their 
thought, all the more potently proves that it was considered 
that the Christ would baptize, that the beginning of His 

35 



546 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

kingdom would be in Baptism, that He preeminently would 
be the Baptizer. " They asked him, and said unto him, Why 
baptizest thou, then, if thou be not that Christ ? " Mcodemus 
came to settle in his mind whether Jesus was the Christ. 
Nothing would be more sure to be a question with him than 
this : Whether Jesus would claim the right to baptize ? The 
answer of John implied that he baptized by authority of the 
Messiah, as His divinely appointed forerunner and provisional 
administrator of this right of Baptism, whose proper authority 
lay in Christ alone. Mcodemus would be peculiarly alive to 
any allusion to Baptism, would be likely to understand as 
referring to it any words whose obvious meaning pointed to 
it, and our Lord would the more carefully avoid whatever 
might mislead him on this point. 

3. John continually characterized his work in this way: 
" I baptize with water" Matt. iii. 2 ; Mark i. 8 ; Luke iii. 16 ; 
John i. 26, 31, 33 ; Acts i. 5. At this time, and under all 
these circumstances, the word " water " would be connected 
specially with Baptism. 

4. John had said of Jesus, shortly before this interview of 
Mcodemus, Mark i. 8 : "I, indeed, have baptized you with 
water ; but He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. . . " 
Here, before the Ruler of the Jews, was the very person of 
whom this had been uttered ; and when he takes up these 
words " water " and " the Spirit," it seems impossible that 
Mcodemus should doubt their allusion to, and their close par- 
allel with, John's words. 

5. John had made two kinds of utterances in regard to 
Christ's work, and we beg the reader to note the great differ- 
ence between them, for they have been confounded, and gross 
misrepresentation of them has been the result. 

The first of these utterances we have just given, Mark i. 8. 
It was made to the body of John's disciples, and the two 
things he makes prominent are Baptism with water, and Bap- 
tism with the Holy Ghost ; that is, water and the Spirit. 

The other utterance, Matt. iii. 7-12, was made to those to 
whom he said : " generation of vipers, who hath warned you 
to flee from the wrath to come ? " John knew that, as a class, 



INTERNAL EFFICACY OF BAPTISM— C ONTEXT. 547 

the Pharisees and Sadducees who came to him were unworthy 
of Baptism, yet as there were exceptions, and as he could not 
search hearts, he baptized them all. Nevertheless, he says : 
"Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit, is hewn 
down and cast into the fire. I, indeed, baptize you with 
water, but He that cometh after me shall baptize you with the 
Holy Ghost, and with fire. Whose fan is in His hand, and 
He will thoroughly purge His floor, and gather the wheat into 
His garner, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable 
fire." "When we look at these words in their connection, 
remember the class of persons addressed, and notice how the 
Baptist, in the way in which the word " fire " runs, Axes its 
meaning here, nothing seems clearer than this, that John has 
in view not the work of the Holy Spirit in the individual, but 
His great work in the mass, and not His purifying power in 
those who are blessed by it, but His purifying power shown in 
the removal and destruction of the evil. The wind created by 
the fan descends alike upon the wheat and the chaff; both are 
alike baptized by it, but with wholly different results. The 
purifying power of the air is shown in both. It is a single 
act, indeed, which renders the wheat pure by removing the 
impurity of the chaff. " You," says the Saviour to the gener- 
ation of vipers, " shall also be baptized with the Holy Ghost." 
His work shall be to separate you from the wheat. You, too, 
shall be baptized with fire ; the fire which destroys the impurity 
which has been separated by the Spirit. See also Luke iii. 9- 
17. The addition of the word " fire " marks, with awful sig- 
nificance, what is the distinction of the Baptism of the wicked ; and 
such an idea, as that the children of God are baptized with fire, is 
not to be found in the New Testament. The only thing that 
looks like it is Acts ii. 3, where it is said, " There appeared 
unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of 
them," but the fire here was symbolical of the character of the 
tongues of the Apostles, of the fervor with which they glowed, 
and of the light which they shed, in the varied languages in 
which they spoke. John spoke of the Holy Spirit and fire, 
when he addressed those who were not to enter the kingdom 
of God. When he addressed true disciples, he associated 



548 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

water and the Spirit. When he spoke to the former, it was 
of the Spirit first, and then of the fire. When he speaks to 
the latter, it is of water first, and then of the Spirit ; the one 
class is to be baptized with the Spirit and with fire, and are 
lost ; the others are baptized with water and with the Spirit, 
and will enter the kingdom of God, When John contrasted 
his Baptism with that of the Saviour, he meant not this : I 
baptize with water only, without the Spirit, and He will bap- 
tize with the Spirit only, and not with water ; he meant : I 
baptize with water ; that is all I can do in my own person, but 
He who in His divine power works with me now, and baptizes 
with the provisional measure of the Holy Spirit, will yet come 
in His personal ministry, and then He will attend the Baptism 
of water, with the full gospel measure of the Spirit. When 
our Lord, therefore, taking up, as it were, and opening still 
further the thought of John, adopts his two terms in the same 
connection in which he had placed them, He meant that Mco- 
demus should understand by " water " and the " Spirit " the 
outward part of Baptism, and that Divine Agent, who in it, 
with it, and under it, offers His regenerating grace to the soul 
of man. 

6. It is not to be forgotten that Mcodemus was asking for a 
fuller statement of the doctrine of the new birth. He asked : 
" How can a man be born when he is old? " The emphasis is 
not on the word " can " alone, as if he meant to express a 
doubt of the truth of our Saviour's proposition ; the emphasis 
rests also on the word "how." He meant to say: "A man can- 
not be born again ill the natural sense and ordinary way. 
How, then, in what sense, and by what means, can he be born 
again?" It is impossible that one interested in grace itself 
should not be alive to its means. For our Saviour not to have 
made an allusion to any of the divine modes, as well as to the 
Divine Agent of the change, would seem to make the reply a 
very imperfect one. But if any one of the means of grace is 
alluded to, the allusion is certainly in the word " water;" and 
admitting this, the inference will hardly be resisted that " Bap- 
tism " is meant. 

7. The entire chapter, after the discourse with Nicodemus, 



INTERNAL EFFICACY OF BAPTISM— TEXT. 549 

is occupied with baptisms, baptismal questions, and baptismal 
discourses. 

a. In verse 23, the word " water " occurs : " John was bap- 
tizing in ^Enon, because there was much water there." 

b. It is not unworthy of notice, that immediately following 
the conversation of our blessed Lord with Mcodemus, come 
these words, " After these things came Jesus and his disciples 
unto the land of Judea, and there he tarried with them and 
baptized." 

c. John's disciples and the Jews came to him and said : 
" Rabbi, he to whom thou bearest witness, behold the same bap- 
tizeth, and all men come to him." Then John replies: "Ye 
yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but 
that I am sent before him." The authority for John's Bap- 
tism was secondary, derived from Christ. Christ now takes 
it into His own hands, and prepares to endow it with the ful- 
ness of the gifts of His Spirit. 

The context of these words demonstrates that by "water" 

our Saviour meant Baptism. The evidence of the 

. ... -■ The Text - 

text itself is equally decisive that this is his mean- 
ing. It is conceded by all, that if the word " water " be taken 
literally, it means " Baptism ; " hence, all those who deny that 
it refers to Baptism understand it figuratively, and in that fact 
acknowledge that to prove that it is to be taken literally, is to 
prove that it refers to Baptism. 
We remark, then, 

1. That to take the word " water " figuratively makes an 
incongruity with the idea of a birth. It is said that water 
here is the figure of the cleansing and purifying power of the 
Holy Spirit. But there is an incpngruity in such an interpre- 
tation. Had the Saviour meant this, he would naturally have 
said : Except a man be cleansed, or washed with water, not 
" born of " it. 

2. One of the figurative interpretations is in conflict with 
the evident meaning of the word " Spirit " here. For it is 
clear from the whole connection, that the Spirit here means 
the Holy Spirit as a person. In the next verse it is said : 
" That which is born of the Spirit is Spirit," and in the 8th 



550 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

verse : " So is every one that is born of the Spirit." ~Eo sound 
interpreter of any school, so far as we know, disputes that the 
word " Spirit," in these passages, means the Holy Spirit as a 
person ; and nothing is more obvious than that the word in 
the 5th verse means just what it does in the following ones. 
But if " water " is figurative, then the phrase water and Spirit 
means, in one of the figurative interpretations, " spiritual 
water ; " that is, the substantive Spirit is used as an adjective, 
and not as the name of a person. This false interpretation 
makes the phrase mean " spiritual water," and Baptism and 
the Holy Spirit both vanish before it. In its anxiety to read 
Baptism out of the text, it has read the Holy Spirit out of 
it, too. 

3. Another figurative interpretation turns the words the 
other way, as if our Saviour had said : " Born of the Spirit 
and water," and now it means not that we are to be born 
again of " spiritual water," but that we are to be born again 
of the " aqueous or water-like Spirit." But not only does such 
a meaning seem poor and ambiguous, but it supposes the one 
term, " Spirit," to be literal, and the other, " water," to be fig- 
urative ; but as they are governed by the same verb and prepo- 
sition, this would seem incredible, even apart from the other 
cogent reasons against it. In common life, a phrase in which 
such a combination was made, would be regarded as absurd. 

4. The term "to be born of" leads us necessarily to the 
same result. 

a. The phrase is employed in speaking of natural birth, as 
in Matt. i. 16 : " Mary of whom was born Jesus." 

Luke i. 35 : " That holy thing which shall be born of thee, 
shall be called the Son of God." So in this chapter, " that 
which is born of the flesh." 

b. It is employed to designate spiritual birth. Thus John 
i. 13 : " (the sons of God) were born not of the blood, nor of the 
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Here 
no symbolical title is used, but the literal name of the Author 
of the new birth. So in this chapter, v. 8 : " So is every one 
that is born of the Spirit." John, in his gospel and epistles, 
uses the phrase " to be born of" fifteen times. In fourteen of 



THE PARALLELS. 551 

them, it is not pretended that any of the terms used to desig- 
nate the cause of the birth is symbolical. The fifteenth 
instance is the one before us. 

The phrase to " be born of" is never connected elsewhere in 
the New Testament with terms indicative of the means or 
cause of birth, which are symbolical in their character. The 
whole New Testament usage is in conflict with the supposition 
that it is here linked with a symbolical term. 

" Born of God " is used some eight or nine times. " Born 
of the Spirit " is used twice, and these, with the words before 
us, exhaust the New Testament use of the phrase. 

Without the context, then, the text itself would settle the 
question, and demonstrate that our Lord referred to Baptism. 

The words of our Lord Jesus to Nicodemus are the keynote 
to the whole bodv of New Testament representa- 

, . t n* n-rk 3- The P arallels - 

tion m regard to the necessity and efficacy of Bap- 
tism. The view which regards the words " Born of water and 
of the Spirit," as referring to Baptism, is sustained and neces- 
sitated by the whole body of parallels in the gospels and 
epistles. Let us look at a few of these : 

1. In Titus iii. 5, Paul, speaking of God our Saviour, says: 
"He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing 
of the Holy Ghost." Here the subject is the same as in 
John iii. 5, the new birth, or regeneration. There is a parallel 
between " born of God," and " regeneration," and " renewing ; " 
between " water " and " washing," or laver. " The Spirit " 
in the one is parallel with " the Holy Ghost " in the other, 
and " Entering into the kingdom of heaven " in the one has 
its parallel in the other, in the words, " He saved us." "What 
a beautiful comment does Paul make on our Lord's word ! 
Take up the words in John, and ask Paul their meaning. 
What is it to be " born again ? " Paul replies, "It is to expe- 
rience regeneration and renewing." What is the " water," of 
which our Lord says we must be born? It is the washing of 
regeneration. What is the Spirit ? Paul replies, " The Holy 
Spirit." What is it to enter the kingdom of God ? It is to be 
saved. 

2. Ephes. v. 26 : " Christ loved the Church and gave Him- 



552 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

self for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the wash- 
ing of water by the "Word." In these words. the new birth 
is represented as sanctifying and cleansing ; the " water " is 
expressly mentioned ; to be " born of water " is explained as a 
" sanctifying and cleansing with the washing of water," and 
the " Word " as a great essential of Baptism and organ of the 
Holy Spirit in it, is introduced. 

3. Hebrews x. 21 : " Let us draw near with a true heart, in 
full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an 
evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water." 
Here Baptism is regarded as essential to having a true heart 
and full assurance of faith, and the mode in which " water " is 
used is denned in the words, " having our bodies washed with 
pure water." 

4. In 1 John v. 6-8, speaking of Jesus: "This is He that 
came by water and blood, not by water only, but by water and 
blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the 
Spirit is truth. And there are three that bear witness on 
earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood." Here is a 
most decisive confutation by John himself of the glosses put 
upon his Master's words. They demonstrate that " water "" 
and " Spirit " are not one. " There are three that bear witness, 
the Spirit, and the water, and the blood." 

5. The parallel in St. Peter is also very important. 1 Pet. 
iii. 21, 22: "The Ark, wherein few, that is, eight souls were 
saved by water. The like figure whereunto even Baptism doth 
now save us." The water lifted the Ark above it, away from 
the death which overwhelmed the world. It separated the 
eight souls from the lost, and saved them while it destroyed 
the others. Here the Apostle, speaking of " souls saved by 
water," declares that Baptism, in such sense, corresponded 
with the deluge, that we say of it also, "It saves us" — the 
implication being irresistible — that the whole thought in- 
volved is this : in the Church, as in the Ark, souls are saved 
by water, that is, by Baptism. Having said so great a thing 
of Baptism, the Apostle adds : " Not the putting away of the 
filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward 
God." That is, it is not as a mere outward purifier, or cere- 



THE PARALLELS. 553 

monial washing, Baptism operates. Its gracious effects are 
conditioned on the state of the heart of him to whom they are 
offered. He who in faith accepts Baptism in its purifying 
energy through the Spirit of God, also receives it in its saving 
result. 

6. The words of our Lord Jesus, elsewhere, fully sustain the 
view which the Church takes of His meaning in John iii. 5. 
In his final commission he charges the Apostles "to baptize " 
the nations, Matt, xxviii. 19, and connects with it the promise : 
" He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved ; " and adds : 
" but he that believeth not shall be damned," Mark xvi. 16. 
These words should be pondered. We are not to separate 
what God hath joined together. Who shall be saved ? First, 
He only that believeth. That is decisive against the idea that 
Sacraments operate apart from the spiritual state of the recipi- 
ent. It is a death-blow to formalism — a death-blow to Rome 
and to Oxford. We are justified by faith ; that is written 
with a sunbeam in the words : " He that believeth . . shall be 
saved." But is that all the Saviour said? No*! He adds: 
" and is baptized, shall be saved." Who dares read a " not " 
in the words, and make our Saviour say, " He that believeth, 
and is not baptized, shall be saved " ? But the man who says, 
" Baptism is in no sense necessary to salvation," does contradict 
the words of our Lord. But if it be granted that in any sense 
our Lord teaches that Baptism is necessary to salvation, then 
it makes it highly probable that the same doctrine is asserted 
in John iii. 5. The reader will please notice that we are not 
now attempting to settle the precise meaning of either the 
words in John or the parallels. Our question now simply is, 
What is the subject when our Saviour speaks of water and the 
Spirit ? 

7. In the minds of the Apostles, the doctrines of our Lord, 
of the necessity in some sense (we are not inquiring now in 
what sense or with what limitations,) of Baptism to salvation, 
was ever present. When the multitudes said to Peter, and to 
the rest of the Apostles, " Men and brethren, what shall we 
do?" then Peter said unto them, "Repent, and be baptized, 
every one of you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for 



554 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy 
Ghost." Now, mark — first, that Baptism and the Holy Spirit 
are separately spoken of, as in John iii. 5 ; second, that Bap- 
tism is represented as a means or condition of receiving the 
gift of the Holy Ghost ; third, that hesides repentance Bap- 
tism is enjoined as necessary ; fourth, that it is clearly set forth 
as in some sense essential to the remission of sins. 

8. The Apostles and other ministers of the Lord Jesus bap- 
tized all persons : " When they believed Philip preaching the 
things concerning the kingdom of God, they were baptized," 
Acts viii. 12. "When Philip preached Jesus to the eunuch, he 
said: " What doth hinder me to be baptized? " And Philip 
said, u If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest ; " 
not, as some would say now, " If thou believest with all thine 
heart, there is no need of being baptized." Thus, Lydia and 
her household • the jailer and his household. No matter 
where or when the Spirit of God wrought His work in men, 
they were baptized, as if for some reason, and in some sense it 
was felt that this was necessary to an entrance on the kingdom 
of God. 

9. Ananias said to Saul, after announcing to him the com- 
mission which God gave him : " And now, why tarriest thou? 
Arise and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the 
name of the Lord," Acts xxii. 16. Here Baptism is represented 
as necessary, in some sense, even to a converted man, as a means, 
in some sense, of washing away sins. 

10. As resonances of the wonderful words of our Lord, we 
have the Apostle's declaration : " So many of us as were bap- 
tized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death, there- 
fore, we are buried with Him, by Baptism, into death. By 
one Spirit are we all baptized into one body. For as many of 
you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ." 

Thus comparing God's Word with itself do we reach a sure 
ground. Context, text, and parallel, the great sources of a 
sound interpretation of the living oracles, all point to one 
result, in determining what our Lord spoke of when he said : 
" Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God." 



RESORTS OF INTERPRETER S— HENDIADYS. 555 

The form of speech to which recourse has most frequently 
been had here to put a figure into the words, is that which 
is called " Hendiadys ; " that is, the phrase in which one 
(hen) is presented by (dia) two (dys). That is to 4 The resorts 
say, two nouns are used where one noun would of interpreters. 
answer, if the idea of the other were presented in 
an adjective form. Thus Yirgil says : " We offered drink in 
bowls and gold;" that is, in golden bowls, or bowl-shaped 
gold. By this hendiadys, the Saviour is said here to have 
meant " spiritual water," or " the water-like Spirit." 

Xow let us look at this " hendiadys " by which it is pro- 
posed to set aside the natural meaning of our Saviour's words. 
We remark : 

1. That after a careful search, we cannot find a solitary 
instance (leaving this out of question for a moment) in which 
it is supposed that the Saviour used the form of speech known 
as hendiadys. It was not characteristic of him. 

2. Neither is it characteristic of John the Evangelist, whose 
style is closely formed upon that class of our Lord's discourses 
which he records in his Gospel. 

3. Nor is it characteristic of the style of any of the New 
Testament writers. But three instances of it are cited in the 
entire New Testament by Glass in his Sacred Philology, and in 
every one of those three, the language is more easily inter- 
preted without the hendiadys than with it. Winer, the high- 
est authority on such a point, says, in regard to hendiadys in 
the New Testament : " The list of examples alleged does not, 
when strictly examined, furnish one that is unquestionable."* 

4. The passage in Matt. iii. 11 : " He shall baptize you with 
the Holy Ghost and with fire," is the only one in which it is 
pretended that a parallel is found with the one before us ; but 
we have shown in a former part of this Dissertation, that there 
is no hendiadys here ; the fire and the Holy Ghost are distinct 
subjects. The persons addressed were neither to be baptized 
exclusively with the Holy Spirit-like fire, or the fire-like Holy 
Spirit, but just as our Lord says, with both; with the Holy 

*Grramm. of N. T. Diction. Transl. by Masson. Smith, English & Co. 1859. 
p. 652. Seventh Ed. by Liinemann. (Thayer.) Andover. Draper. 1869. p. 630. 



556 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Spirit and with fire — the former, in His personality, separating 
them as the breath of the purifier's fan, and the latter con- 
suming them as the purifier's flame. 

5. But we have a little more to say in regard to this hen- 
diadys ; and that is, that if we even concede that it is used 
here, it does not help the figurative interpretation at all. For 
look at its real character a moment. Hendiadys does not affect 
at all the question of the literalness or figurativeness of the 
terms embraced in it ; it does not change their meaning, but 
simply their form. Take, for example, the illustration we 
gave from Virgil : " bowls " and " gold " are both literal ; and 
to have " golden bowls," you must have literal gold as well as 
literal bowls ; not gold analogous to a bowl, or a bowl like to 
gold. So Lucan says of a horse : " He champed the brass and 
the bit ; " that is, the brass-formed bit ; but the brass was real, 
and the bit was real ; it does not mean the brass-like bit, or 
the bit-like brass. So, in Acts xiv. 13, it is said that the 
expression " oxen and garlands," is a hendiadys, and means 
" garlanded oxen.'* We are not sure that it does ; but if it 
does, it means there were literally garlands and literally oxen. 
Oxen is not figurative, meaning strength, of which the ox is a 
symbol ; nor does " garlands " mean " honored," though gar- 
lands are an image of honor. It does not mean that they 
brought honored strength, or strong honor, to the gates ; but 
hendiadys or no hendiadys, it involves equally that there were 
oxen and garlands. So here, even supposing a hendiadys, we 
must none the less have literally water, and literally the Spirit. 

The only thing hendiadys proves, is, that the things it 
involves are not separated; and if we suppose a hendiadys 
here, it leaves both the water and the Spirit as literal terms, 
and only involves this, that they are conjoined in the one birth. 
In other words, hendiadys only makes a slight bend in the 
route, and brings us after all to the same result as the most 
direct and artless interpretation, to wit, that our Saviour 
referred to Baptism in His words to Mcodemus. 

Another resort, more extreme than the one we have just 
disposed of, is that of the Epexegesis, that is to suppose that 
the " and " gives the words this force : " Born of water, that 



IS BAPTISM NECESSARY TO SALVATION? 55* 

IS to say, of the Spirit.'"' It is contended that it is parallel to 
such an expression as this : " God and our Father," which 
means: " God, that is to say, our Father." In the epexegesis, 
one thing is spoken of in more than one aspect, and, hence, 
under more than one term. For instance, in the 

r i-i Epexegesis. 

phrase we have quoted : " God and our Father 
means: That Being who is God, as to his nature, and Father, as 
to his relation to us, God essentially, and Father relatively ; in a 
word, both God and Father. It does not make the term God 
metaphorical, and the term Father the literal substitute for it. 
If an epexegesis, therefore, were supposable in John iii. 5, the 
phrase could only mean : Born of that which is water, as to 
its outer part, and Spirit, as to its internal agent, that is, both 
water and Spirit. It is, therefore, of no avail to resort to the 
epexegesis here, even if it were allowable. But it is not allow- 
able. There is not an instance, so far as we know, in human 
language, in which a noun used metaphorically is conjoined 
by a simple " and " with a term which is literal and is meant 
to explain it. In a word, the resorts of a false interpretation, 
which are sometimes very specious, utterly fail in this case. 
Our Lord has fixed the sense of his words so surely, that the 
unprejudiced who weigh them calmly cannot be at a loss as to 
their meaning. 

The Augsburg Confession (Art. IX. 1) declares that Baptism 
" is necessary to salvation." Is it justified in so Is Baptism 
doing ? Can we accept a statement apparently so necessary to sai- 
sweeping ? Is it a Scripture statement ? 

In order properly to answer these questions, it is necessary 
to determine what the Confessors meant. In all human writ- 
ings, and in the Book of God, occur propositions apparently 
universal, which are, nevertheless, in the mind of the writer, 
limited in various ways. What is the meaning of the propo- 
sition of our Confession ? Is it absolute, and without excep- 
tions, and if it meant to allow exceptions, what are they? 
The first question we naturally ask, in settling the meaning 
of our Confession, is, What is Baptism ? 

The Platform, in defining what Baptism it supposes the 
Church to connect with salvation, designates it as " such 



558 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

water Baptism." But what our Church affirms of the bless- 
ings of Baptism, she does not affirm of " water Baptism," 
that is, of the application of water per se. The total efficacy 
of the Sacraments is denned in the Augsburg Confession (Art. 
l.whatisBap- V. 2), thus, that through them and the word, "as 
tism? instruments, or means, God gives His Holy Spirit, 

who worketh faith." It would at once remove much of the 
grossest prejudice against the doctrine of our Church, if it 
were known and remembered that the Baptism of whose bless- 
ings she makes her affirmation, embraces not merely the exter- 
nal element, but yet more, and pre-eminently, the word and 
the Holy Spirit. She regards it as just as absurd to refer any 
blessings to Baptism, as her enemies define it, as it would be to 
attribute to swords and guns the power of fighting battles 
without soldiers to wield them. 

Her first lesson on the subject is : " Baptism is not mere 
water," (Cat. Min., 361, 2). " Wherefore," says Luther (Cat. 
Maj., 487, 15), "it is pure knavery and Satanic scoffing, that 
now-a-days these new spirits, in order to revile Baptism, sepa- 
rate from it the Word and institution of God, and look upon 
it as if it were mere water from the well, and then, with their 
childish drivelling, ask, ' What good can a handful of Avater do 
the soul ? ' Yes, good friend, who does not know that when 
you separate the parts of Baptism, water is water? " " Bap- 
tism cannot be sole and simple water (do. 26), mere water can- 
not have that power." " !N~ot by virtue of the w T ater" (do. 29). 
"Not that the water (of Baptism) is in itself better than any 
other water," (do. 14.) So in the Smalcald Articles : " We do 
not hold with Thomas and the Dominican friars, who, forget- 
ful of the word and the institution of God, say, That God has 
conferred a spiritual power on water, which washes away sin 
through the water " (320, 2). 

" Baptism," says Gerhard* " is the washing of water in the 
Word, by which washing the whole adorable Trinity purifieth 
from sin him who is baptized, not by the work wrought {ex opere 
operato) but by the effectual working of the Holy Ghost coining 
upon hiniy and by his own faith." Such is the tenor of all the 

* Loci (Cotta) ix. 318. 



REGENERATION NOT PRECEDED BY BAPTISM. 559 

definitions our Church gives of Baptism, from the simple ele- 
mentary statements of the Catechism up to the elaborate defini- 
tions of the great doctrinal systems. 

The assumption, then, that what the Church says of Bap- 
tism, she affirms of mere water Baptism, rests on a fundamen- 
tal misapprehension. Whatever is wrought in Baptism, is 
wrought by the Holy Ghost, through the Word, with the 
water, in the believing soul. 

" That some adults, by actual impenitence, hypocrisy, and 
obstinacy, deprive themselves of the salutary efii- 2. Baptism is 
cacy of Baptism, we freely admit." Gerhard (IX. " ot fl*** fo1 ' 

«* .. r ' *> > lowed by regen- 

170). eration. Regen- 

Just as clear as they are in their judgment that ^ on v ^edl'd 
Baptism is not necessarily followed by regeneration, b > r Baptism- 
are our Church and her great divines in the judgment that 
regeneration is not necessarily preceded by Baptism, or at- 
tended by it. 

The Augsburg Confession (Art. V.) declares the gospel (as 
well as the Sacraments) to be the means whereby the Holy 
Ghost works and confers faith, and (Art. VII.) presents the 
gospel purely preached (as well as the Sacraments) as that 
whereby the true Church is marked out and made. " As we 
come alone through the Word of God to God, and are justi- 
fied, and no man can embrace the Word but by faith, it fol- 
lows that by faith we are justified." Apol. 99, 68. "The 
natural man is, and remains, an enemy of God, until, by the 
power of the Holy Ghost, through the Word preached and 
heard, he is converted, endowed with faith, regenerated and 
renewed." Form. Concord, 589, 5. "We cannot obey the 
law unless we are born again through the gospel." Apol. 
Conf. 140, 190. " Faith alone brings us to a new birth." Do. 
119, 61. "This faith alone justifies and regenerates." Do. 
138, 171. " Regeneration is wrought by faith in repentance." 
Do. 253. "When, therefore," says Gerhard,* "they are bap- 
tized, who have already been regenerated through the Word, 
as a spiritual seed, they have no need of regeneration through 
Baptism, but in them Baptism is a confirmation and sealing 
of regeneration." 

* Loc. viii. 325. 



560 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

When Mcodemus asked, "How can a man be born when 
he is old ? " Jesus replied, u Of water and of the Spirit/' and 
extends the proposition to all " that which is born of the 
flesh ; " that is, to " all men after the fall of Adam, who are 
3 Men may be born in the course of nature." (A. C, Art. II.) 
unbaptized and The necessity of the new birth He clearly predi- 
cates upon the fact that the flesh, which is such 
by virtue of fleshly birth, requires this change. 

That in John iii. 5, water means Baptism, the Platform 
concedes : " The language of the Saviour, doubtless, refers also 
to Baptism" But even critics who deny this, concede that in 
John iii. 6, man is contemplated as the subject of original sin. 
Those who concede this (and this all concede), and who concede 
that " water " means Baptism (and this the Platform concedes), 
concede that, not only in the phraseology, but in the connec- 
tion, application, and argument of that phraseology, the Augs- 
burg Confession is perfectly justified by the Saviour's language, 
when it says (Art. II.) " this original sin " (" that which is 
born of the flesh is flesh ") "brings now also eternal death " 
(" cannot see the kingdom of God ") " to those who are not 
born again of Baptism (' water ') and of the Holy Ghost." If 
the case is made out from these words, against the Confession 
of the Church, it is also made out against the Saviour, to whose 
words it so closely adheres. The dilemma, then, is irresistible, 
either that both teach it, or that neither does. As regards the 
effectual overthrow of their own position, it matters little 
which horn the objectors take. If they take the one, then, on 
their own concession, the Saviour teaches Baptismal regenera- 
tion ; if they take the other, on their own concession, the Con- 
fession does not teach Baptismal regeneration. Is, then, the 
inference warranted, that our Saviour, in His words, and our 
Confession, in its use of them, mean to affirm an absolute and 
unconditional necessity, that a man shall be born of water, 
before he can enter into the kingdom of God \ We reply, that 
neither the Saviour nor the Confession meant to affirm this, 
but simply an ordinary necessity. " The necessity of Baptism 
is not absolute^hut ordinary." (Gerhard IX. 383.) Bellarmine 
had argued from John iii. 5, for the Romish doctrine, that 



ARE UNBAPTIZED INFANTS SAVED? 561 

unbaptized infants are lost. Gerhard (IX. 287) replied : " 1. 
The warning of Christ bears not upon the privation of the 
Sacrament, but the contempt of it. 2. He describes the ordi- 
nary rale, from which cases of necessity are excepted. We 
are bound to the use of the means, but God may show His 
grace in extraordinary ways." 

How touchingly and consolingly Luther wrote upon this 
topic is known to all admirers of his writings. 4 Are unb 
Bugenhagen, in the admirable Treatise already tized infants 
referred to, which is incorporated in Luther's 
"Works, and was issued with a Preface by him, shows at large 
that neither to infants nor adults is the necessity of Baptism 
absolute. " Rather should we believe that the prayers of 
pious parents, or of the Church, are graciously heard, and that 
these children are received by God into His favor and eternal 
life." 

On the whole dark question of the relation of the heathen 
world to salvation, the early writers of our Church generally 
observe a wise caution. Yet even in the school of the most 
rigid orthodoxy we find the breathings of tender hope. " It 
is false," says Mentzer,* " that original sin in infants out of 
the Church is an adequate cause of reprobation ; for men are 
never said in Scripture to be reprobated on that account solely. 
But as faith alone justifies and saves, so also, as Luther says, 
unbelief alone condemns." 

^Egidius Hunnius, whom Gerhard pronounced the most 
admirable of the theologians of his period, and of whom 
another great writer affirms, that by universal consent he 
holds the third place of merit after Luther, says : j- " I would 
not dare to affirm that the little children of heathen, without 
distinction, are lost, for God desireth not the death of any — 
Christ died for them also," etc. 

Our Church, then, does not teach that Baptism " is neces 
sarily and unavoidably attended by spiritual regeneration,' 
but holds that a man may be baptized, and remain then and 
forever in the gall of bitterness, and in the bonds of iniquity, 

* Oper. I. 959, quoted in Gerhard. Cotta. 
f In Quaest. in Cap. VII. Gen., quoted in Gerhard IX. 284. 
36 



562 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

and therefore holds as heartily and fully as the Platform,* 
" that Baptism in adults does not necessarily effect or secure 
their regeneration." 

In the next place, our Church regards Baptism not as 
5. Baptism not " essential " in its proper sense, hut as " necessary." 
essential. That w hi c h i s properly « essential," allows of no 

degree of limitation ; hut that which is " necessary," may he 
so in various degrees with manifold limitations. It is " es- 
sential " to our redemption that Christ should die for us ; 
therefore, without limits of any kind, we affirm that no 
human being could he saved without His atoning work. It 
is " necessary " that we should hear the gospel, for it is the 
power of God unto salvation ; hut the necessity of hearing 
is limited in various ways. It does not comprehend both 
infants and adults, as that which is essential does. 

The Augsburg Confession (Art. IX.) says, not that Baptism 
e. But neces- * s essential, but simply that it is necessary — to 
sary. which the Latin, not to show the degree of neces- 

sity, but merely its object, adds " to salvation" 

In later editions of the Confession, Melanchthon, to remove 
the possibility of misconstruction, added a few words to the 
first part of the Ninth Article, so that it reads : " Of Baptism, 
they teach that it is necessary to salvation, as a ceremony insti- 
tuted of Christ." So far, at least, we think all could go in 
affirming its necessity. And with such mild expressions, even 
those who were most remote from the Melanchthonian spirit 
were satisfied. 

" Among all orthodox Lutherans, Hutter is among the most 
orthodox ; no one has remained more thoroughly within the 
bounds of the theology authorized and made normative by the 
Church than he — no one has adhered with more fidelity, not 
merely to the spirit, but to the very letter of the Symbols, 
especially of the Form of Concord, "f Yet Hutter exhausts, 
in the following answer, the question : " Is Baptism necessary 
to salvation ? " " It is ; and that because of God's command. 
For whatever God has instituted and commanded, is to be 
done, is precious, useful, and necessary, though as to its out- 

* P. 29. f Herzog's Encyclop. fuer. Theol. VI. 346. 



BAPTISM NECESSARY—NOT UNCONDITIONALLY. 563 

ward form it be viler than a straw. "■* So much and no more 
does this great theologian say of the necessity of Baptism in his 
Compend. Later theologians have properly given prominence 
to its necessity as a mean, but never have ascribed to it a neces- 
sity per se. 

For, finally, on this point, the Church never has held, but 
has ever repudiated the idea that Baptism is 7 . Yet not un- 
" unconditionally essential " or necessary " to sal- conditiQnall y- 
vation." 

She has limited the necessity, first of all, by the " possibility 
of having it " — has declared that it is not absolutely necessary, 
and that not the deprivation of Baptism, but the contempt of 
it condemns a manf — that though God binds us to the means, 
as the ordinary instruments of His grace, He is not Himself 
limited by thera.J She teaches, moreover, that all the bless- 
ings of Baptism are conditioned on faith. C. M., 490 : 33 - 36. 

The " Shorter Catechism " of Luther teaches that what- 
ever Baptism gives, it gives alone to those " who believe that 
which the Word and promises of God assure us of." " The 
water cannot do such a great thing, but it is done by the 
Word of God, and faith which believes the Word of God, 
added to the water." We shall not give the reference for this, 
as even the little children are supposed to know it by heart, 
nor stultify ourselves or our readers by adducing authorities 
for the catechetical doctrines of our Church. 

The Lutheran Church holds that Baptism is necessary to 
salvation, inasmuch as God has commanded it, and obedience 
to His commands is necessary to salvation ; and, furthermore, 
because He has appointed Baptism, as one ordinary and posi- 
tive channel of His grace, through which channel we are to 
seek the grace He offers. But our Church denies that, where 
the command cannot be carried out, because of a necessity 
which is of God's creating, the lack of the sacrament involves 
the loss of the soul. 

On the more difficult question, whether infants born out of 
the Church are saved, many of our old divines, of the strictest 

* Compendium Loc. XX. 3. This answer is taken from Luther's Larg. Cat. 
f Luther's Werke : Leipz. Edit. XXII. 400-422. % Do. p. 412. 



564 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

school, have maintained, as we have already seen,* that it 
would be harsh and cruel to give over, absolutely, to condem- 
nation, the infants of pagans, for the lack of that which it 
s. our theoio- was impossible for them to have. This view has 
gians in general, been defended at large, by Dannhauer, Hulsemann, 
Scherzer, J. A. Osiander, Wagner, Musseus, Spener, 
and very many others. Some of our best theologians, who have 
not considered the argument on either side as decisive, have 
suspended their judgment in the case, as did Gerhard, Calixtus, 
Meisner, Baldwin, Bechman, and others. Hunnius, whom Ger- 
hard quotes approvingly, makes the statement of this middle 
view, in these words : " That the infants of pagans are saved, 
outside of the Church, is a matter on which the silence of 
Scripture forbids us to pronounce with assurance on the one 
side, yet I would not dare to affirm, on the other, that those 
little ones, without distinction, are lost. 

"For, 1. Since God desires the death of none, absolutely, it 
cannot rightly be supposed that he takes pleasure in the death 
of these little ones. 2. Christ died for them also. 3. They 
are necessarily excluded from the use of the Sacraments. Nor 
will God visit the children with eternal death, on account of 
the impiety of the parents. Ezek. xviii. We commit them, 
therefore, to the decision of God." 

Cotta approves of the most hopeful view of their condition, 
and argues for it — " 1. From the infinite pity of God. 2. 
The extent of the benefits wrought by Christ. 3. The anal- 
ogy of faith — no one absolutely reprobated, but actual unbe- 
lief alone condemns. 4. Not the absence, but the contempt of 
Baptism condemns. 5. God can operate in an extraordinary 
way. 6. Though original sin, in itself, merits damnation, and 
is a sufficient cause of it, yet it is not (because of God's infinite 
goodness) an adequate cause of the actual infliction of that 
condemnation." 

The facts we have dwelt upon dispose of another charge 
y. Baptismal against our Church — the charge of teaching an 
regenerate. unscriptural doctrine in regard to regeneration, 
and the relation of Baptism to it. 

* See Dissertation on Original Sin. 



CONFESSION AND PLATFORM COMPARED. 565 

The Definite Platform says of " Baptismal Regeneration : " 
" By this designation is meant the doctrine that Baptism is 
necessarily and invariably attended by spiritual regeneration, 
and that such water Baptism is unconditionally essential to sal- 
vation." " Regeneration, in its proper sense of the term, con- 
sists in a radical change in our religious views — in our religious 
feelings, purposes, habits of action." The Miami Synod, in 
1858, set forth what they suppose to be meant by the charge, 
when " they utterly repudiate and abhor " (as well they may) 
the following error: "Baptismal regeneration — that is, that 
Baptism is necessarily connected with, or attended by, an 
internal spiritual change ex opere operato, or from the mere out- 
ward performance of the act."* Their definition and that of 
the Platform are substantially the same, though we do not 
understand them to charge such a doctrine upon their Church 
or its Confession. 

The charge against our Church of teaching " Baptismal 
Regeneration," as those who make the charge define it, is, as 
we have seen, utterly ungrounded. It is not true in its general 
statement nor in its details ; it is utterly without warrant in 
the whole, or in a single particular. We have presented a 
few facts in elucidation and defence of the Scripture doctrine 
of Baptism, as confessed by our Church, and as The couuter . 
misrepresented and assailed in the Definite Plat- theor y of Ba P- 
form. It is always an interesting question, often 
a very important one, If we give up that which is assailed, 
what shall we have in the place of it ? This question is of 
great importance in the present case. What equivalent do 
those propose to the Church, who ask her to give up her most 
cherished doctrines ? What is the doctrine which the Definite 
Platform proposes as the true one, in place of that theory of 
" Baptismal Regeneration" which it denounces ? It 1 Ba tism of 
is this, "Baptism in adults is a pledge and condi- adults. The ca- 
tion of obtaining those blessings purchased by platform"* com- 
Christ, and offered to all who repent, believe in P ured - 
Him, and profess His name by Baptism." 

Now, is not that which is a condition of obtaining a thing 

*Luth. Observ. xxvi. 29. 



566 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

necessary to it — and is not " salvation " the generic term for 
the " blessings purchased by Christ ? " How, then, can the 
Platform take offence at the Ninth Article of our Confession ? 
Just put them side by side: 



Aug. Conf.: Baptism 
Def. Plat.: Baptism 



is necessary | to salvation. 

is a condition I those blessings purchased. 

of obtaining | by Christ. 



Then conies the question of the Baptism of infants. What 

2. Baptism of nere ^ s *he view which is to supersede that anni- 

infants. hilated theory (if that may be said annihilated 

which never existed,) " that Baptism is a converting ordinance 

in infants? " 

The theory is this (p. 31) : " Baptism, in infants, is the pledge 
of the bestowment of those blessings purchased by Christ, for all. 
These blessings are, forgiveness of sins, or exemption from the 
penal consequences of natural depravity (which would at least 
be exclusion from heaven) on account of moral disqualification 
for admission," etc. 

Look now at this, and compare it with what our Confession 
says on the Baptism of Infants. (Art. IX.) All that it says 
on the subject is : 

1. " That children are to be baptized." Here the Platform 
assents fully. 

2. " That by this Baptism they are offered and committed 
to God." 

Here, too, we apprehend, there will be no dissent, for it is 
said : " Baptism in infants, is the pledge of reception into the 
visible Church of Christ, grace to help in every time of need." 

3. "Being offered in Baptism to God, they are well-pleasing 
to God, (that is,) are received into the favor of God," says the 
Confession, and here it ceases to define the blessings of Bap- 
tism ; but the Platform goes much further. " Baptism in 
infants," it says, " is a pledge." The first blessing of which it 
declares it to be a pledge is " forgiveness of sins," conceding 
this, that infants have sins ; that they need the forgiveness of 
sins ; that baptized infants have the pledge of the forgiveness of 
their sins, and, of necessary consequence, that unba.pt ized infants 



BAPTISM OF INFANTS. 567 

have no pledge of the forgiveness of their sins ; in other words, 
that there is no pledge that the sins of unbaptized infants are 
forgiven ; for if they have the pledge, too, though they have 
no Baptism, how can Baptism be the pledge of forgiveness ? 

The words that follow now, are explanatory of the preced- 
ing ones. " These blessings are forgiveness of sins, or exemp- 
tion from the penal consequences of natural depravity." For- 
giveness is defined to be " exemption from penal consequences." 
Sins are defined to he "natural depravity." 

Now wherein does this doctrine differ from the old one, that 
in Baptism the " reatus," or liability of original sin is taken 
away, although the " materiale " remains ?* except, perhaps, in 
this, That Luther supposes God graciously to do it by His Holy 
Spirit through the Baptism, while the Platform may mean, 
that Baptism is only the pledge that it is done, but it is done 
either way, and in both Baptism is the proof, at least, that 
it is done. 

But we have, furthermore, a statement of what " the penal 
consequences of natural depravity " are : " Which would, at 
least, be exclusion from heaven, on account of moral disqualifi- 
cation for admission." 

Now, analyze this proposition, and you have the following 
result : 

1. That infants have natural depravity, which is a moral 
disqualification for heaven. 

2. That this natural depravity has penal consequences, that is, 
is a punishable thing ; that infants, consequently, have moral 
character, and some sort of moral accountability ; are the subjects 
of law, as to its obligation, for they have sins to be forgiven ; 
and of law as to its pains, for they are subject to " penal 
consequences." 

3. That this punishment would be exclusion from heaven. 
But this statement is qualified in a very remarkable way — 
"would, at least, be exclusion from heaven," — that is the 
minimum. The words " at least," seem to mark this train of 
thought: " They would, at least, be excluded from heaven, even 
if they were not sent to hell." Now this style of thinking, as 

* Apolog. Confess., 83, 35. 



568 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

it has in it, unconsciously to its author, we trust and believe 

— as it has in it a tinge of Pelagianism — so it trembles, logi- 
cally, upon the very border of that figment to which the Pela- 
gianism of the Church of 'Rome, combined with her strong 
sacramentalism, leads her — the doctrine of a limbus infantum. 
She was too sacramental to admit that the original sin of a 
child could be removed without Baptism ; too Pelagian to con- 
cede that original sin must, in its own nature, apart from God's 
grace, bring death eternal. Her sacramentalism, therefore, kept 
the unbaptized child out of heaven ; her Pelagianism kept it out 
of hell, and the conjunction of the two generated a tertium quid 

— the fancy of a " limbus infantum" or place which, without 
being hell, was yet one of exclusion from heaven, a mild per- 
dition, whereby infants not wholly saved were, nevertheless, 
not totally lost. And the shadow of this very tendency shows 
itself in the words we have quoted from the Platform. 

Connecting the three propositions now, with what has pre- 
ceded them, we reach, then, furthermore, 

4. That God grants forgiveness of the sins of the baptized 
infant, forgives its natural depravity, exempts it, of course, 
from the penal consequences thereof, and thus, if it is not saved 
from a liability to eternal death, it is, "at least" saved from 
exclusion from heaven. If the Platform means that the sin of 
an infant, unforgiven, would bring eternal death to it, then it 
goes as far as the extremest views of the nature of original sin 
can go, and vindicates the very strongest expressions of the Con- 
fession on this point ; and if it means that original sin would 
exclude it from heaven without consigning it to despair, it has 
virtually the doctrine of the limbus infantum. 

5. And finally, Baptism in infants is the pledge of all this 

— they have the pledge — and, of consequence, unbaptized 
infants have not. In other words, there is an assurance that 
every baptized child has this great thing, " forgiveness of 
sins." 

It is not surprising that, after all this, the Platform closes 
its discussion on this point with these words (p. 31) : " It is 
proper to remark that the greater part of the passages in the 
former Symbols, relating to this subject, are, and doubtless 



BAPTISM OF INFANTS. 569 

may be, explained by many, to signify no more than we above 
inculcate." We understand the author in this to concede, not 
simply that they are so explained, but that they are, in fact, 
susceptible of this explanation, and that this may be really 
their meaning. 

It is our sincere belief, that if the energy which has been 
expended in assailing as doctrines taught by our Confessions 
what they do not teach, had been devoted to ascertaining what 
is their real meaning, these years of sad controversy would 
have been years of building up, and of closer union, not years 
of conflict, years in which our ministry and members have had 
their minds poisoned against the truth of God as held by our 
Church. 

But, while there are apparent points of identity with the 
Church doctrine in that of the Platform, there is one chasm in 
its theory which nothing can bridge over, a contradiction of 
the • most palpable and fatal character. That vital defect is 
this, that while this theory secures the forgiveness of an infant's 
sins, it makes no provision whatever for the change of its sinful 
nature. While it provides for its exemption from penalty, it 
leaves utterly out of sight the correction of its depravity, which 
is a more fearful thing than the penalty which follows it ; for 
in the pure judgment of sanctified reason, it would be better 
to be holy and yet bear the penalty of sin, than to be sinful 
and have the immunities of holiness ; better to be sinless, 
although in hell, than to be polluted and in heaven. The the- 
ory concedes that there is in " infants a moral disqualification 
for heaven." It absolutely needs, therefore, before an infant 
can have a pledge in Baptism of its salvation, that there shall 
be a pledge provided for its moral qualification for heaven, and 
this moral qualification must be regeneration. 

But the theory not only does not provide for this, but as far 
as it is stated in the Platform, absolutely excludes it. It says, 
" Baptism in infants is a pledge of the forgiveness of sins," 
but it says not a word of the removal of sins in whole or in 
part. The cardinal defect, therefore, is, that it provides a 
pledge that the blessings which follow regeneration shall be 
given, but provides none that the regeneration itself shall be 



570 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

given — it provides that the child shall be saved from the pen- 
alty of sin without being saved, in whole or in part, from the 
sin itself ; saved, in fact, in its sins, not from them. To what 
end would a child enter heaven if its nature were unchanged. 
Forgiving a sin in no sense changes its character. And where 
in the Word of God is there the shadow of that baleful doc- 
trine, that the sins of an unregenerate person are forgiven ; where 
the shadow of that deadly error, that God has provided a 
Church, into which, by His own ordinance, and at His com- 
mand, millions are brought, without any change in a nature 
whose moral evil is such as would condemn them forever to 
exclusion from heaven — where is the shadow of that fatal 
delusion, that the curse of sin can be removed while the sin 
itself remains dominant ? 

But if a refuge is sought in saying that infants are regen- 
erated, but that Baptism, in all its parts, element, Word and 
Spirit, is not the ordinary channel of this grace, this is to 
accept a theory which has every difficulty which carnal reason 
urges against the doctrine of the Church, but which has noth- 
ing that even looks like a warrant for it in God's Word, and 
which, run out logically, would destroy the whole character 
of Christianity as a system of wonderful means to beneficent 
ends. 

Dr. Heppe, in his Dogmatik of the Evangelical Reformed 
Church (1861), presents the doctrines of the Cal- 

Calvinistic and ...>,,, n .„ n • , , ., 7 

Lutheran views vimstic Churches, and illustrates his text with 
of Baptism com- citations from their standard theologians. The doc- 

pared. ^ 

trine of the Lutheran Church, in regard to Bap- 
tism, is often very severely spoken of by Calvinists — it is, 
indeed, one of the main points of attack. Perhaps it may not 
be without some interest to compare the Lutheran and Cal- 
vinistic views in regard to this important subject. 

The definitions of Baptism which Heppe gives as purely Cal- 
vinistic and Eeformed, are as follows : " Baptism is a sacra- 
ment, in which those to whom the covenant of grace pertains, are 
washed with water in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy 
Spirit, that is, that to those who are baptized, it is signified and 
sealed, that they are received into the communion of the covenant 



CALVINISTIC AND LUTH. VIEWS OF BAPTISM. 571 

of grace, are inserted into Christ and His mystic body, the Church, 
are justified by God, for the sake of Christ's blood shed for us, 
and regenerated by Christ's Spirit." This definition he gives 
from Polanus. Another and shorter one he furnishes from 
Wollebius, as follows : " Baptism is the first sacrament of the 
new covenant, in which to the elect received into the family of 
God, by the outward application of water, the remission of sins 
and regeneration by the blood of Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, are 
sealed" He gives only one other, which is from Heidegger, 
thus: "Baptism is the sacrament of regeneration, in which to each 
and to every one embraced in the covenant of God, the inward wash- 
ing from sins through the blood and Spirit of Christ, is declared 
and sealed." 

The doctrine thus stated, and correctly stated, for it is the 
doctrine of all genuine Calvinists, involves several things, 
which the detractors of our Church may do well to ponder. 
First, It draws a line between baptized infants as well as 
between baptized adults, representing some as belonging to the 
elect, some to the non-elect, some as belonging to the class to 
whom the covenant of grace pertains, others as not of that 
class. Shall we prefer this part of the doctrine to that which 
teaches that God is the Father of all, and Christ the Saviour 
of all, heartily loving all and desiring to save them ? Can a 
mother believe it possible that between her two beloved little 
children prattling at her knee, there may be, in God's love, 
will, and purpose, a chasm cleft back into eternity, and running 
down to the bottom of hell ? Can she believe this when her con- 
science tells her that the slightest partiality on her part, for the 
one or the other, would be a crime? Can she believe that 
God's absolute sovereignty elects absolutely one of her children 
to eternal glory, and passes by the other, when that passing 
by necessarily involves its ruin forever ? Can it be wondered 
at that High Calvinism has, in so many cases, been the mother 
of TJniversalism — that men who start with the premise, that 
the absolute sovereignty of God determines the eternal estate 
of men, should draw the inference, not that He elects some to 
life, and leaves the mass to go to perdition, but that He elects 
all f Shall we give up this part of the baptismal doctrine of 



572 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the Church ? And yet if we surrender it — if we say the doc- 
trine of Baptism is not a fundamental one in our system, men 
may teach among us on this point what they please. What is 
to prevent these views from being preached in our pulpits and 
taught in our houses ? 

A second feature of the Calvinistic view of Baptism is, 
that to those perfectly alike in all personal respects, Baptism 
comes with entirely different functions. To one infant it signs 
and seals communion in the covenant, insertion into Christ, jus- 
tification and regeneration ; to another, perfectly alike in all 
personal respects, it signifies and seals nothing. ~No parent 
knows what his child receives in Baptism, whether it be a 
mere handful of water on its hair, or the seal of blessings, 
infinite like God, and irrevocable to all eternity. The minis- 
ter does not know what he has done ; whether he has sealed 
the everlasting covenant of God with an immortal soul, or 
thrown away time and breath in uttering mocking words, to 
that little being which smiles and prattles, in utter uncon- 
sciousness that it is abandoned to a destiny of endless pain, of 
unspeakable horror. Can we give up the baptismal doctrine 
of our Church for this? Our Church tells us that Baptism 
makes the offer of the same blessing to every human creature 
who receives it ; that a difference in the result of Baptism 
depends upon no lack of the divine grace, on no secret counsel 
of God, but upon the voluntary differences of adults — and 
that as there are no such differences in infants, there is no dif- 
ference in the effects of Baptism to them. Surely Lutherans 
should stand shoulder to shoulder in this, that whatever be the 
blessing of Baptism, be it little or great, vague or well-defined, 
it is offered alike to all, and conferred alike upon all who do 
not present in themselves the voluntary barrier to its reception. 
Yet if we say the doctrine of Baptism is non-fundamental, these 
very errors may be set forth in our theological chairs, taught 
in our Catechisms, and set forth in our pulpits. 

A third element of the Calvinistic doctrine of Baptism is, 
that to those for whom any of the blessings of Baptism are 
designed, it supposes the sealing of as great blessings, as on the 
strongest sacramental theory, even that of the Church of 



CALVINISTIC AND LUTH. VIEWS OF BAPTISM. 573 

Rome herself, is conferred by Baptism ; it seals to the elect, to 
whom alone its blessings belong, reception into the " commu- 
nion, that is the fellowship in, the participation in, the cove- 
nant of grace," " insertion into Christ and His mystic body," 
" justification," "regeneration," and "the inward washing of 
sin." Two infant brothers, twins, we will say, are offered for 
Baptism ; whatsoever is to come to pass has been unchangea- 
bly ordained by God from eternity in regard to them ; one of 
the twins may be " elect" may have been predestinated unto 
everlasting life ; the other is non-elect, is foreordained to ever- 
lasting death, particularly and unchangeably. The twins die 
in infancy, the elect one, by the terms of the theory, is regen- 
erated, the non-elect is unregenerate ; the one is saved, the 
other is lost ; the grace of Baptism belongeth to the elect 
infant according to the counsel of God's own will, and there- 
fore " baptismal grace," — that is a Calvinistic idea, too, — there- 
fore baptismal grace is " not only offered, but really conferred on 
that infant." To an elect infant dying soon after its Baptism, 
the Calvinistic theory seems to give as much as the highest 
theory of "baptismal regeneration." Let Lutherans remem- 
ber that it is here conceded that the highest blessings which 
oar Church teaches us are connected alone with a worthy 
entrance into the baptismal covenant, and a faithful continu- 
ance therein, are acknowledged by Calvinists to be actually 
sealed therein — that is, that God sets his hand to it, by the 
act of baptizing, that the elect do then have, or shall yet have, 
if they have not then, justification, regeneration, and inward 
washing from sin. Shall we take offence at the doctrine of 
our Church, which asks us to receive as an article of faith, in 
regard to the efficacy of Baptism, no more than is summed up 
in the words of oar Confession, that " through Baptism the 
grace of God is offered, that children are to be baptized, and 
being through Baptism offered to God, are received into His 
favor?" 

Here, then, we rest the case. The doctrine of Baptism held 
and confessed by the Evangelical Lutheran Church is, as we 
believe all her doctrines are, absolutely accordant in every 
part with the Word of God. To abide by her Confession, is 



574 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

to abide by the Word, and there she and her true children 
will rest. If we destroy the historical life of our Church, and 
abandon her Confession, whither can we go ? What system 
can we accept which will meet so fully our wants ? If we 
destroy or rend the Lutheran Church, or allow as normal and 
final just as much deviation as the individual may wish from 
all to which she has been pledged in her history, from all that 
is involved in her very name, from all that gave her distinctive 
being, what may we hope to establish in her place to justify so 
fearful an experiment, and to indemnify the world for so great 
a loss ? 

The final proposition of the Confession is antithetical, and 
The Antithesis arranges itself into three parts : 
of the confession. 1 u Q n this account the Anabaptists are con- 
demned." " Derhalben werden die Wiedertaufer verworfen." 
" Damn ant Anabaptistas." 

2. " Who disapprove of the Baptism of children and teach 
that it is not right." " Welche lehren dass die Kindertauf 
nicht recht sei." " Qui improbant baptismum puerorum." 

3. " And affirm that children are saved without Baptism." 
" Et affirmant pueros sine baptismo salvos fieri." 

I. The Anabaptists took their name from their repetition of 
The Anabap- Baptism in the case of those who had been bap- 
tlsts ' tized in infancy. {Ana in composition indicates 

repetition.) They have also been called Katabaptists from 
their opposition to the Baptism of children. The early Ana- 
baptists with whom our Reformers had to contend, made their 
main opposition to infant Baptism, and although they immersed, 
they certainly gave little prominence (if they gave any) to 
the question of mode, as compared with modern Baptists. 
The sect of Anabaptists made their appearance in history 
soon after the beginning of the Reformation, and excited dis- 
turbances in Saxony in 1522. The roots of the Anabaptist 
movement, especially on its political side, strike deep into the 
Middle Ages. The Reformation was not its cause, although 
Anabaptism often made the Reformation its occasion. Fanati- 
cism always strives to corrupt the purity of faith in one direc- 
tion, as Formalism strives to stifle it in the other. A pure 



ARGUMENTS OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 575 

Church stands in living antagonism to the formalism of Rome, 
and to the fanaticism of all pseudo-Protestantism. It has the 
body, but disavows the flesh ; it has spirituality, but carefully 
guards it against running into spiritualism. 
. The most renowned of the Anabaptists in history was 
Thomas Muenzer, who was originally preacher in 

' & J r . Muenzer. 

Allstaedt. He was deposed on account of his 
fanaticism, and uniting himself with the Anabaptists, became 
their leader. He published a bitter attack upon the Baptism 
of children. Leaving Saxony, he passed through a large por- 
tion of Germany with his associates, everywhere finding, 
among a population degraded by the current Romanism, 
abundance of adherents. Returning to Saxony, he established 
himself at Muehlhus, where he aroused the peasantry, claimed 
princely authority, gathered an army, abolished the magis- 
tracy, proclaimed that in future Christ alone was to be king, 
and made war in 1525 upon the princes themselves. The 
rebel bands were defeated at Franckenhus, and Muenzer was 
put to death. Prominent also among the Anabaptists were 
those who were led by John of Leyden, so called T , „ ^ 

^ ' JohnofLeydeu. 

from his having seized upon that city, where he 
overthrew the magistracy, assumed the government with the 
title of king, made laws to suit himself and his followers, and 
practised great cruelties toward those who did not yield them- 
selves to him. The city was besieged in 1526 ; an immense 
number of his adherents were slain, and he himself was 
put to death. It is evident that the Anabaptist movement was 
political as well as religious, and was largely a reaction, blind 
and ignorant, against gross abuses. The Anabaptists are con- 
demned in the Confession, not in their persons, but in their 
errors ; the man was not condemned — the errorist, or more 
strictly the error in the errorist, was condemned. 

II. The second point is : " "Who disapprove of the Baptism 
of children, and teach that it is not right." 

It is natural here to look at the grounds on which the Ana- 
baptists object to Infant Baptism, and say that it Arguments of 
is not right. The most plausible arguments which the Anabaptists. 
they urge against it, have been in a large part anticipated in 



576 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

our discussion, but we shall, nevertheless, notice the three 
strongest, the only ones which seem to carry any weight with 
them. Much of the earlier Anabaptist argument has been 
abandoned, as, for example, that as our Saviour was baptized 
in the thirtieth year of his age, infants ought not to be bap- 
tized. The three arguments which have been urged with 
most plausibility are : 

1. That there is no express command for infant Baptism. 

To this we reply : a. That there is an express command. 
Our Lord commands his Apostles to make disciples of all 
nations by baptizing them. The word " nations " embraces 
infants. " God hath made of one blood all nations of men." 
(Acts xvii. 26.) The redemption is as wide as the creation, 
and the power of application as wide as the redemption. The 
" nations," therefore, which God has made, redeemed, and de- 
sires to gather into His Church, are nations of children as well 
as of adults. " It is most certain," says the Apology,* " that 
the promise of salvation pertains also to little children. But 
the promises do not pertain to those who are out of the Church 
of Christ, for the kingdom of Christ cannot exist without the 
Word and Sacraments. Therefore it is necessary to baptize 
little children, that the promise of salvation may be applied to 
them, according to Christ's command (Matt, xxviii. 19), ' Bap- 
tize all nations,' in which words as salvation is offered to all, 
so Baptism is offered to all — to men, to women, to children, to 
infants. It clearly follows, therefore, that infants are to be 
baptized, inasmuch as salvation is offered in Baptism — in and 
with Baptism the common grace and treasure of the Gospel is 
offered to them." 

b. When Jesus says : " That which is born of the flesh is 
flesh," and " Except a man be born again of water and of the 
Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," He teaches 
that infants, inasmuch as they are flesh, must be born again of 
water and of the Spirit, that is, must be baptized and become 
regenerate. 

c. If the express term were necessary, men and women 
equally with infants would be excluded from Baptism, because 

* 163, 52. 



ARGUMENTS OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 577 

uone of them are specifically mentioned in the baptismal com- 
mission ; in other words, there is a generic express command 
to baptize infants on the one hand, and there is no specific 
express command on the other either as regards sex or age. 

d. Infant membership, sealed by a sacramental rite, was 
established under the Old Testament. If it had been designed 
to abolish infant membership under the New Dispensation, it 
would have been necessary to do it in so many words. The ques- 
tion fairly put, then, is not, " Where is infant Baptism enjoined 
in the New Testament ? " but, " Where is it forbidden ? " 

e. Infant Baptism was practised by the Jews in New Testa- 
ment times. Lightfoot, the greatest of the old rabbinical schol- 
ars, says, in his Harmony on John : *•" The baptizing of infants 
was a thing as commonly known and as commonly used before 
John's coming, and at the time of his coming, and subsequently, 
as anything holy that was used among the Jews, and they were 
as familiarly acquainted with infant Baptism as they were 
with infant circumcision. " And this he proves by abundant 
citations from the Talmud and the old rabbinical writers. It 
is inconceivable, therefore, that in such a state of things the 
Apostles should not have forbidden infant Baptism, if it were 
not meant that it should be administered. 

/. The argument, a fortiori : If in the Old Testament, com- 
paratively restricted as its range was, infants were embraced 
in the covenant, much more in the New Testament, broader 
and more gracious than the Old as it is, would they be em- 
braced. But infants are embraced in the Old, much more 
than in the New. 

g. That is as really Scriptural which is by just and. necessary 
consequence deduced from Scripture, as that which is stated in 
it in so many words. When the Bible says : " There is but 
one God," it means just as much that the gods of the heathen 
are false, as if it were said in so many words. 

2. It is urged that a covenant requires consciousness and 
intelligence on the part of those whom it embraces ; but infants 
can have no consciousness of a covenant, therefore they cannot 
be embraced in one. 

* Opera, 1686. Vol. I. p. 390, 
37 



578 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

We reply to this : a. Divine covenants do not require con- 
sciousness and intelligence on the part of all whom they 
embrace. On the contrary, they embrace not only infants, but 
prospectively generations unborn, as, for example, the cove- 
nant with Abraham .and his seed after him, sealed by the sac- 
rament of circumcision. 

b. Human covenants do not necessarily require consciousness 
and intelligence on the part of all embraced in them, but rest 
on the right of the adult generation to represent, and act for 
their children and posterity. We are bound by the constitu- 
tional compact made by our fathers — bound by the covenants 
and treaties with foreign nations made before we were born. 

c. The baptismal covenant is a voluntary covenant in one 
sense, that is to say, the child's will is presumed in the case. 
If the child cannot consciously accept the covenant, neither can 
it, nor does it, reject it. In another sense, however, the baptis- 
mal covenant is not voluntary. All human creatures are bound 
to be children of God, and have not the right to say whether 
they will or will not be His children. If my child has not 
the right of self-decision as to whether it shall honor me as its 
parent, but is absolutely bound so to do, though it never was 
consulted, much more is that same child bound to honor God, 
and I usurp no right pertaining to it, when, as its representa- 
tive, I bind it by covenant to that to which it is bound with- 
out covenant. 

3. It is urged that sacraments do not benefit without faith ; 
but the infant has no faith, therefore Baptism can do it no 
good. 

We reply to this : a. If infants demonstrably have no faith, 
it would still be possible that in their Baptism there is a treas- 
ure of blessing, the full understanding and use of which is 
reserved for them when they can have faith, even as a father 
provides for his babe, or bequeaths to it many things which it 
cannot use till it reaches adult life, though they belong to it 
from the beginning. 

b. But infants do have receptive faith. " When we say that 
infants believe or have faith, it is not meant that they under- 
stand, or have consciousness of faith, but the error is rejected 



FAITH OF INFANTS 579 

that baptized infants are pleasing to God, and are saved, with- 
out any action of the Holy Spirit in them. This is certain, that 
the Holy Spirit is efficacious in them, so that they can receive 
the grace of God and the remission of sins. The Holy Spirit 
operates in them in His own way, which it is not in our power 
to explain. That operation of the Spirit in infants we call 
faith, and we affirm that they believe. For that mean, or 
organ, by which the kingdom of God, offered in the Word and 
Sacraments, is received, the Scripture calls faith, and declares 
that believers receive the kingdom of God. And Christ affirms, 
Mark x. 15, that adults receive the kingdom of God in the same 
way that a little child receives it ; and, Matt, xviii. 6, He speaks 
of the little ones which believe in Him." These are the words 
of Chemnitz,* and they mark the distinction we make in the 
term receptive faith. Faith as an act, like sin as an act, pre- 
supposes a condition of mind, which condition is the essential 
thing in both cases, to which the ad/ is merely phenomenal. 
The act is intermittent, the condition is continuous. The 
worst of men does not cease to be a sinner merely because the 
act of sinning ceases. He may be in stupor, or in sleep, or his 
present thoughts may be absorbed in something morally indif- 
ferent, and yet he is a sinner through the whole. He is not 
always sinning, but he is always sinful, because the essence of 
character lies in the condition of the soul. The believer may 
be in stupor, or sleep, or his present thoughts be entirely ab- 
sorbed in the necessary cares, or duties, or innocent enjoyments 
of life, but he is a believer through the whole. He is not 
always consciously exercising faith, but he is a believer always, 
because the essence of character is the condition of the soul. 
In the case of the infant, both on the side of nature and of 
grace, there must be, and is, a stronger and more protracted 
separation between the essential condition of sin and faith, and 
the phenomenon of conscious sin and of conscious faith, than 
in the case of the adult, but the condition is as real. By nature 
the infant is as really a sinner, and by grace as really a believer, 
as the adult is, though it can neither do sin nor exercise faith. 
It has sin by nature, and has faith by grace. Working out 

* Exanien. Cone. Trid. II. ii. x. 14. 



580 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

under the law of the first condition, it will inevitably do sin, as 
under the law of the second it will exercise faith. Faith justifies 
by its receptivity alone. There is no justifying merit in faith as 
an act, nor is there any in the acts it originates. In the adult it 
is divinely wrought : it is " not of ourselves, it is the gift of 
God." In the infant there is wrought by God, through the 
Holy Ghost, by means of the water and the Word, that recep- 
tivity of condition which it has not by nature. The Holy 
Ghost offers grace, and so changes the moral nature of the 
child that this nature becomes receptive of the grace offered. 
This divinely wrought condition we call receptive faith, and 
though its phenomena are suspended, it is really faith, and as 
really involves what is essential to justification, as does the 
faith of the adult. The hand of an infant may as really grasp 
a diamond as if the infant knew the value of the treasure it 
held, and if the natural hand can be the minister of acts whose 
force it comprehends not, how much more may the supernatu- 
ral hand? To accept the doctrine of original sin, and deny the 
doctrine of a divine counterwork — the doctrine "that where 
sin abounded, grace did much more abound" — is to make 
nature potent, and grace weak — it is an aggravation of Mani- 
cheism, and gives us a Devil mightier than God. Many of the 
Calvinistic divines have felt the difficulty under which their 
system labors, and have modified it in various degrees, so as to 
approximate the Lutheran view. Calvin acknowledges " a 
seed of faith in infants." Ursinus * says they have an " incli- 
natory faith, or inclination to faith." Voetius says " there is 
in them a root, faculty, supernatural principle, seed, or nursery, 
from whence, in its own time, faith rises up. It is related to 
faith as seed is to the tree, the egg to the bird, the bulb to the 
flower." Peter Martyr says that faith in infants is " incipient, 
is in its principle and root, inasmuch as they have the Holy 
Spirit, whence faith and all virtues flow forth. . . The age of 
infancy is capable of the motions of faith, and Jeremiah and 
John are witnesses that this age can be graced by the Holy 
Ghost."f 

Kor was this great truth unknown in the Ancient Church. 

* In Cateches. Q. 57. f Quoted in Quenstedt. Theologia. II. 1142, 1145. 



ARGUMENTS OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 581 

" Thou must number baptized infants among believers," says 
Augustine* to a Pelagian: "thou darest not judge in any 
other way, if thou art not willing to be a manifest heretic." 
"In baptized infants, the Holy Spirit dwells, though they 
know it not. So know they not their own mind, — they know 
not their own reason, which lies dormant, as a feeble glimmer, 
which is to be aroused with the advance of years, "f 

c. Over against the proposition that nothing benefits with- 
out faith, we put the complementary proposition that nothing 
condemns but unbelief; but infants who by nature are con- 
demned, because of the unbelief of nature, though they are not 
conscious of it, are by grace received into covenant, because by 
grace they have faith, though they are unconscious of it. If 
infants can be regenerated and have remission of sins, then can 
they have faith, which is an element in regeneration, and neces- 
sary to remission. 

d. The Word does not profit, without faith, in the adult, 
and yet it is the' Word through which the Holy Ghost excites 
the faith which secures the benefit. So is it in Baptism. It 
offers the faith which receives, and offers to that faith the 
grace of God ; as the word of our Lord to the man with the 
withered hand bore the power which made obedience to the 
command possible. If Baptism offers grace to a child, then 
may we be well assured that God, who does not mock us, gives 
to that child what by nature it cannot have — a receptive 
faith. All divine commands bear with them the power of 
their fulfilment under the law of grace. 

e. The Apostles in their original ignorance reasoned about 
children somewhat as the Anabaptists do. But Jesus said : 
" Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me, 
for of such is the kingdom of heaven." But the kingdom of 
God is not a kingdom of unbelievers, or of unregenerate per- 
sons. All the tares in that kingdom are sown by the Devil. 

III. The third and last point in the antithesis is that the 
Anabaptists "affirm that children are saved without Baptism," 
"et affirmant pueros sine baptismo salvos fieri." 

* De Verb. Apostol. Serm. xiv. Vol. X. 221. 
f Do. Epist. 57. Op. IV. 180. 



582 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

We have seen that our own Confessors did not maintain the 
-absolute necessity of Baptism to salvation, and it may, there- 
fore, seem surprising that they charge upon the Anabaptists as 
an error what, they themselves appear to concede. But if we 
see the true force of their language, the difficulty vanishes, for 

1. The Anabaptists contended that Baptism was not the 
ordinary channel of salvation to the child. Our Confessors 
maintained that it is. 

2. The Anabaptists contended that in fact children are not 
saved by Baptism. Our Confessors maintained that in fact 
children are saved by it. 

3. The Anabaptists contended that no child is saved by Bap- 
tism. Our Confessors maintained that children are saved by 
Baptism. 

4. The Anabaptists contended that a baptized child who is 
saved, is saved without respect to its Baptism. Our Confessors 
maintained that it is saved of God by it as a mean. 

5. When our Confessors conceded that an unbaptized child 
might be saved, they rested its salvation on a wholly different 
ground from that on which the Anabaptists rested it. The 
Anabaptists contended, on a Pelagian basis, that the child was 
saved because of its innocence, and without a change of nature. 
Our Confessors maintained that it was saved as a sinful being 
for Christ's sake, and after renewal by the Holy Ghost. Our 
Confessors, in a word, maintained that children are ordinarily 
saved by Baptism ; that this is God's ordinary channel of sal- 
vation to them. The Anabaptists contended that children are 
in no case saved by Baptism ; that it is not the ordinary chan- 
nel of salvation ; and this error of theirs is the one condemned 
in the Confession. The Formula of Concord* makes all these 
points very clear in its statement of the errors of the Anabap- 
tists, which it enumerates thus : 1. " That unbaptized children 
are not sinners before God, but are righteous and innocent, who, 
without Baptism (of which, according to the opinion of the 
Anabaptists, they have no need,) are saved in their innocence, 
inasmuch as they have not yet attained to the use of their 
reason. In this way they reject the entire doctrine of Original 

*Epitom. 558. 6, 7, 8. Solid. Declarat. 727. 11, 12, 13. 



ARGUMENTS OF TEE ANABAPTISTS. 583 

Sin, and the doctrines which are dependent on it. 2. That 
children are not to be baptized until they attain the use of 
reason, and can make a profession of faith for themselves. 3. 
That the children of Christians, because of their birth of Chris- 
tian and believing parents, are holy, and children of God, with- 
out Baptism, and previous to it." 

In summing up the doctrine of Baptism we are to remember 

1. The necessity of a true definition of Baptism. Baptism 
is not mere water, but embraces also the command of God 
the promise of God ; the effectual work of the Holy Ghost 
offering to faith, in connection with the outward part of Bap 
tism, the grace of God. Whatever is wrought in Baptism, is 
wrought by the Holy Ghost, through the Word, with the 
water, in the believing soul. 

2. That in adults Baptism is not always followed by regen- 
eration, and that regeneration is not always preceded by Bap- 
tism ; that men may be baptized and be lost, and may be 
unbaptized and be saved. 

3. That unbaptized infants may be saved, and that the 
infants of heathen may be saved; that Baptism, though not 
absolutely essential in the theological sense, is yet necessary. 

The whole doctrine of our Church, then, on the question, 
"What is Baptism, and what are its blessings?" may be 
summed up in these words : 

By Christian Baptism our Church understands not " mere 
water " (Small. Cat. 361, 2), but the whole divine institution 
(Larger Cat. 491, 38-40), resting on the command of the 
Saviour, Matt, xxviii. 19 (Sm. Cat. 361, 2), in which He com- 
prehends, and in which He offers the promise (Mark xv. 15 ; 
Sm. Cat. 362, 8), and which is, therefore, ordinarily necessary 
to salvation (A. C. ii. 2; ib. ix. 1, 3); in which institution, 
water, whether by immersion (L. C. 495, 65), sprinkling or 
pouring (L. C. 492, 45), applied by a minister of the Gospel 
(A. C. v. 1 ; ib. 14), in the name of the Trinity (Sm. Cat. 361, 4), 
to adults or infants (A. C. ix. 2), is not merely the sign of our 
profession, or of our actual recognition as Christians, but is 
rather a sign and testimony of the will of God toward us (A. 
C. xiii. 1), offering us His grace (A. C. ix.), and not ex oj)cre 



584 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

operato (A. C. xiii. 3), but in those only who rightly use it, i. e. 
who believe from the heart the promises which are offered and 
shown (A. C. xiii. 2 ; L. C. 49, 33), is one of the instruments 
by which the Holy Ghost is given (A. C. v. 2), who excites 
and confirms faith, whereby we are justified before God (A. C. 
iv.; ib. v. 3), so that they who thus receive or use it, are in 
God's favor (A. C. ix. 2), have remission of their sins (Mcene 
Creed, 9), are born again (A. C. ii. 2), and are released from 
condemnation and eternal death (A. C. ii. 2 ; Sm. C. 361, 6) so 
long as they are in a state of faith, and bring forth holy works 
(A. C. xiii. 1-6 ; Sm. C. 362, 11-14) ; while, on the other hand, 
where there is no faith, a bare and fruitless sign, so far as 
blessing is concerned, alone remains (L. C. 496, 73), and they 
who do not use their Baptism aright, and are acting against 
conscience, and letting sin reign in them, and thus lose the 
Holy Spirit, are in condemnation, from which they cannot 
escape, except by true conversion (A. C. xiii.), a renewal of the 
understanding, will, and heart (L. C. 496, 68, 69 ; F. C. 605, 70). 
This is the doctrine of our Church, and not one letter of it 
is destitute of the sure warrant of God's Word. The intelli- 
gent examiner will soon discover that, while the whole sum 
and tendency of the Romish and Romanizing doctrine of the 
Sacraments is to make them a substitute for faith in the justi- 
fication of man, the doctrine of the Lutheran Church, in con- 
sonance with the Holy Scriptures, makes them a guard and 
bulwark of the great central truth that "by grace we are 
saved, through faith, and that not of ourselves, — it is the gift 
of God." Her view of the nature of the efficacy of the Word 
and Sacraments, is the only one which solves the mysterious 
question how God can be sovereign, and yet man be accounta- 
ble ; and how the Church can at once avoid the perilous 
extreme of Pelagianism on the one hand, and of unconditional 
Election and Reprobation on the other. 



XII. 

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER THETICALLY 

STATED. 

(AUGSBURG CONFESSION. ART. X.) 



1ST approaching one of the highest, if not the very highest, of 
the mysteries of our faith, it becomes us to prepare ourselves 
for a most earnest, patient, and candid investigation 

1 . & The Lord's Sup- 

of the Scriptural grounds on which that faith rests, per. i. ow Tes- 
The Lord's Supper has been looked at too much as *£^ f ° T r h e ; 
if it were an isolated thing, with no antecedents, sacraments in 
no presuppositions, no sequences ; as if there were 
nothing before it, nothing after it, helping to determine its 
true character ; while, in fact, it links itself with the whole sys- 
tem of Revelation, with the most vital parts of the Old and 
!N"ew Testament, so that it cannot be torn from its true con- 
nections without logically bringing with it the whole system. 
There is no process by which the doctrine of the Lutheran 
Church, in regard to the Lord's Supper, can be overthrown, 
which does not overthrow the entire fabric of the Atonement. 
"No man can deem our distinctive doctrine of the Lord's Sup- 
per non-fundamental who thoroughly understands it in all its 
relations. 

The first thing worthy of note in regard to the sacramental 
mystery is its antiquity. It meets us at the threshold of the 
divine history of our race. In Eden we see already the idea of 
natural and supernatural eating. We have there the natural 
eating terminating in the natural, in the words : " Of every 
tree of the Garden thou may est freely eat." Closely following 

585 



586 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

upon this we have the idea of supernatural eating, with the 
natural bodily organ : " Of the tree of the knowledge of good 
and evil thou shalt not eat ; for in the day thou eatest thereof 
thou shalt surely die." Man did eat of it, and found it a sac- 
rament of -death. In, with, and under that food, as a divine 
means judicially appointed, was communicated death. That 

"mortal taste 
Brought death into the world and all our woe." 

The great loss of Paradise Lost was that of the Sacrament 
of Life, of that food, in, with, and under which was given 
immortality, so objectively, positively, and really that even 
fallen man would have been made deathless by it : " Now lest 
he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, 
and live forever," Gen. iii. 22. The great gain of Paradise 
Regained is that of the Sacrament of Life. Christ says : " I 
am the life ; " " The bread that I will give is My flesh, which 
I will give for the life of the world." The cross of Christ is 
the tree of life, and He the precious fruit borne by heavenly 
grace upon it. The cross is the centre of Paradise Regained, 
as the tree of life was the centre of the first Paradise. Christ's 
body is the organ of the life purchased by His obedience and 
death. The Holy Supper is the sacrament of that body, and, 
through the body, the sacrament of the life which that body 
brings. But that same body is also a sacrament of death to 
the unworthy recipient. The whole sacrament on its two sides 
of death and life is in it united : salvation to the believer, judg- 
ment to the unworthy. After the creation of man, God's first 
provision was for the generation and birth of the race, the fore- 
shadowing of regeneration and of the new birth, for which, in 
Holy Baptism, the first provision is made in the new creation 
of the New Testament. The next provision made for man was 
that of sustenance for the life given, or yet to be given. In 
the Garden of Eden was a moral miniature of the universe ; 
and with the act of eating were associated the two great 
realms of the natural and the supernatural ; and with this was 
connected the idea of the one as a means of entering the other, 
of the natural as the means of entering into the supernatural. 



THE SACRAMENTS IN EJ)EN. 587 

There were natural trees, with purely natural properties, whose 
fruit was eaten naturally, and whose benefits were simply nat- 
ural ; bodily eating, terminating in a bodily sustenance. But 
there was also the natural terminating in the supernatural. 
There were two trees, striking their roots into the same soil, 
lifting their branches in the same air — natural trees — but 
bearing, by Heaven's ordinance, in, with, and under their 
fruitage, supernatural properties. One was the sacramental 
tree of good. We call it a sacramental tree, because it did not 
merely symbolize life, or signify it ; but, by God's appoint- 
ment, so gave life — in, with, and under its fruit — that to 
receive its fruit was to receive life. The fruit which men 
there would have eaten was the communion of life. On Gen. 
iii. 22, the sound old Puritan commentator, Poole, thus para- 
phrases : " Lest he take also of the tree of life, as he did take 
of the tree of knowledge, and thereby profane that sacrament 
of eternal life." 

With this tree of life was found the tree which was the sac- 
rament of judgment and of death, and by man's relations to 
that tree would be tested whether he were good or evil, and 
by it he would continue to enjoy good or plunge himself into 
evil. By an eating, whose organs were natural, but whose 
relations were supernatural, man fell and died. This whole 
mystery of evil, these pains and sorrows which overwhelm the 
race, the past, the present, and the future of sin, revolve 
around a single natural eating, forbidden by God, bringing 
the offender into the realm of the supernatural for judgment. 
We learn here what fearful grandeur may be associated in the 
moral government of God, with a thing in itself so simple as 
the act of eating. The first record of Revelation is a warning 
against the plausible superficiality of rationalism. It was the 
rationalistic insinuation of Satan, as to the meaning of God's 
Word, which led to the Fall. Abandon faith in the letter 
of God's Word, said the Devil. Our first parents obeyed the 
seductive insinuation and died. 

In the Lord's Supper three great ideas meet us as they met 
in Paradise. There is in it, 1, Bread, which, as bread, is the 
natural food of man, and belongs to all men. But there is 



588 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

also, 2, The supernatural element of life: "My flesh, which I 
will give for the life of the world." The natural bread, as the 
sacramental bearer of this heavenly food, is the communion of 
the body of Christ, that is,. the medium by which the body is 
communicated or imparted. There is also in the Lord's Sup- 
per, 3, The supernatural element of judgment, and that of judg- 
ment unto death: " He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, 
eateth and drinketh damnation (or, judgment) unto himself, 
not discerning the Lord's body." The tree of life, as our theo- 
logians well observed, was not a memorial, a symbol, a sugges- 
tive emblem or sign ; but was a supernatural, efficacious, and 
energetic means of life. "This tree," says Osiander (1589), 
" by the divine ordination and will, bore fruit which could, 
preserve the bodily vigor of him who partook of it (' in per- 
petual youth ') until man, having completed the term of his 
earthly life, would, without dying, have been translated to his 
life in heaven." So also the tree of the knowledge of good and 
evil did not symbolize a result, but brought it. Life was in, 
with, and under the fruit of the one tree ; death, in, with, and 
under the fruit of the other. 

This view is not a modern invention. It is found in Irenseus, 
St. Chrysostom, and Theodoret. Gregory Nazianzen enlarges 
upon the idea of " being made immortal by coming to the tree 
of life." St. Augustine says : " In the other trees there was 
nourishment ; in this one, a sacrament " (" in isto autem Sacra- 
mentum "). Vatablus (1557), a very judicious Roman Catho- 
lic expositor, fairly expresses the general sense of the Fathers 
in stating his own : " The tree of life was a sacrament, by 
which God would have sealed immortal life to Adam, if he 
had not departed from His commandment." Delitzsch : " The 
tree of life had the power of ever renewing and of gradually 
transfiguring the natural life of man. To have used it after 
the Fall would have been to perpetuate forever the condition 
into which he had fallen." 

Nor is the true view without support from sources whence 
we might least expect it. Rosenmiiller (Rationalistic) : " This 
writer means that the weakened powers were to be revived by 
eating of that tree, and this life was to be preserved forever." 



FLESH AND BLOOD. 589 

Knobel (strongly Eationalistic) : " This passage (Gen. iii. 22) 
teaches that man, after partaking of the tree of life, would 
have become immortal." Dr. Bush, both in his earlier 
and later notes on Genesis (1833, 1852), says : " Adam might 
frequently have eaten (ed. 1859, ' undoubtedly often ate ') of 
the tree of life before the Fall — sacramentally, as Christians 
eat of the Lord's Supper. In regard to the driving from Para- 
dise, ' lest he also eat of the tree of life and live forever,' Ire- 
nseus said : ' God has so ordered it that evil might not be 
immortal, and punishment might become love to man.' " Dr. 
Bush, who, had his judgment been in the ratio of his other 
endowments, would indisputably have taken the first rank 
among American commentators on the Old Testament, says, 
Gen. iii. 22, 23 : " The language, it must be acknowledged, 
seems to imply, that had man tasted of the tree of life, even 
after his rebellion, he would have lived forever, and that he 
was expelled from Paradise to prevent such a consequence." 
The conclusion, however, is so little in keeping with Dr. Bush's 
theology, that he undertakes to reason it away in a very feeble 
and rationalistic manner, in the face of what he concedes to be 
the obvious meaning of the passage. 

Another hint toward the true view of the sacramental mys- 
tery is given us in the divine declaration, Gen. ix. 2. Fiesh and 
4 : " But flesh with the life thereof, which is the bl00d ' 
blood thereof, shall ye not eat." Literally: "But flesh with 
its soul (i. e. life), its blood, ye shall not eat." Still more liter- 
ally : "in its soul." At the root of this prohibition lay a 
great typical idea, which can be fully understood only in the 
light of the finished sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in 
the light of His sacramental Supper, in which we participate 
in, or have communion with that sacrifice. The command 
was repeated again and again, and the reason most generally 
assigned was that the blood is the life of the flesh. But this 
reason seems itself to require an explanation, and this we find 
fully given in Leviticus, the book in which there is the amplest 
display of the typical element of sacrifice. In Lev. xvii. 10-14, 
we have a full explanation of the meaning of the reservation 
of the blood. It is especially the 11th verse in which the 



590 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

typical force of the prohibition is made manifest, tjjider the 
Old Testament they actually ate of the body of the sacrifice, 
but only drank a symbol of its blood. It is manifest that 
the reservation of the blood pointed to something yet to be 
accomplished, and hinted that the perfect communion in the 
whole sacrifice was reserved for another dispensation. Only in 
the light of this can we fully appreciate the startling character 
of our Lord's command, when, for the first time in the history 
of the chosen race, He gave the command to drink that which 
He declared to be Wood — and solved the mystery by calling 
it the blood of the New Covenant. 

When the three men, Gen. xviii., one of whom is called 

3 ihe super- Jehovah, appeared to Abraham, the patriarch set 
natural and Nat- before them bread, flesh, butter, and milk, and they 
did eat ; Yerse 8. Here was the supernatural eat- 
ing of the natural ; the eating of natural food with the nat- 
ural organ of an assumed body, and that body of course super- 
natural. These same three heavenly persons did eat (Gen. xix. 
3) of unleavened bread in the house of Lot. 

Is there a greater mystery in the sacramental eating, in 
which the supernatural communicates itself by the natural, by 
the natural bread to the natural mouth, than there is in this 
true eating, in which the supernatural partakes of the natural? 
If God can come down and partake of human food by human 
organs, so that it is affirmed of Jehovah that He did eat, He 
can lift the human to partake of what is divine by a process 
which, though supernatural, is yet most real. 

The relations of sacrifice to covenant in the Old Testament 

4. The relations suggest instructive parallels to the Lord's Supper, 
of covenant to l n Gen. xv. we have the covenant between God 
and Abraham sealed with sacrifice. In Gen. xxxi. 
44-46, is presented the idea of eating as an act of covenant. 
Laban said to Jacob : " Let us make a covenant," " and they 
did eat there upon the heap ; " where eating is the crowning 
act of the covenant. But more than this is presented in this 
chapter, for in the particulars of the ratification of the cove- 
nant, we are told (verse 54), " Then Jacob offered sacrifice upon 
the mount, and called his brethren to eat bread : and they did 



RELATIONS OF SACRIFICE TO SACRAMENT. 591 

eat bread." Here is the idea, first, of sacrifice as the insepara- 
ble constituent in the covenant ; then, of joint participation in 
the sacrifice by eating of it, by the parties partaking in the 
covenant through it. 

The idea of sacrifice under the Old Dispensation sheds light 
upon the nature of the Lord's Supper. " "Without 5< The relatioria 
the shedding of blood is no remission." The slay- of sacrifice to sac- 
ing of the victim by shedding its blood, by which 
alone its death could be effected, was properly the sacrifice. 
After the sacrifice was made, two things were essential to 
securing its end: first, that God should receive it; second, that 
man should participate in it. The burning of the sacrifice 
by fire from heaven was the means of God's accepting it on 
the one side; and eating of it, the means of man's partici- 
pating on the other. The truth is, that the sacrifice of the 
Old Testament resolves itself into the very elements which 
we find in the Lord's Supper. The Altar was the Table of f 
the Lord, and the whole conception of sacrifice runs out 
into this, that it is a covenanting Supper between God and 
man. 

The sacrifice, through the portion burnt, is received of God 
by the element of fire ; the portion reserved is partaken of by 
men, is communicated to them, and received by them. The 
eating of one portion of the sacrifice, by the offerer, is as real 
a part of the whole sacred act as the burning of the other part 
is. Man offers to God ; this is sacrifice. God gives back to 
man ; this is sacrament. The oblation, or thing offered, sup- 
plies both sacrifice and sacrament, but with this difference, 
that under the Old Dispensation God received part and man 
received part ; but under the New, God receives all and gives 
back all: Jesus Christ, in His own divine person, makes that 
complete which was narrowed under the Old Covenant by the 
necessary limitations of mere matter. But in both is this 
common idea, that all who receive or commune in the recep- 
tion of the oblation, either on the one part as a sacrifice, or on 
the other as a sacrament, are in covenant ; and in the light of 
this alone is it, that not on Calvary, where the sacrifice was 
made, but in the Supper, where the sacrifice is applied, the 



592 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Saviour says : " This is the New Testament (the new covenant) 
in My blood." 

The New Testament strikes its roots down into the very heart 
of the Old Dispensation, and to understand either 

6. The Passo- x 

ver is a type of we must study both together. Let us compare, in 
the supper. ^q case of the paschal lamb and paschal supper, the 
type and the fulfilment, and we shall see how the earlier sheds 
light upon the later, and how both placed in their true rela- 
tion illustrate each other. The following are but a part of the 
points of illustration, but they may be sufficient to lead the 
attentive student of God's Word to search for himself. 

1. The passover was to be a lamb, and Christ is the true 
Lamb. " They shall take to them every man a lamb" are the 
words of the institution of the passover; Ex. xii. 3. The 
key to the typical reference of the lamb is already given in the 
words of Isaiah (liii.) " He " (the man of sorrows) u is brought 
as a lamb to the slaughter." But the New Testament unfolds 
the typical reference in all its clearness. " Behold the Lamb 
of God " (John i. 29, 36) ; " the blood of Christ, as of a lamb; " 
1 Pet. i. 12. It is by this name that Christ is revealed in the 
glories of the apocalyptic vision : " In the midst of the elders 
stood a Lamb" " the elders fell down before the Lamb : " " Worthy 
is the Lamb that was slain." The title "lamb " is applied to 
our Lord between thirty and forty times in the New Testament. 

2. The paschal lamb was to be typically perfect, and Christ 
was truly perfect. The typical characteristics of the paschal 
lamb it is not necessary here to dwell upon. It was to be per- 
fect and unblemished in every respect to typify Him, who both 
in body and soul was spotless, " holy, harmless, undefiled, and 
separate from sinners." "Ye were redeemed .... with the 
precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and with- 
out spot;" 1 Pet. i. 12. 

3. The paschal lamb was to be slain as a type of redemp- 
tion, and Christ was to be slain for the verity of redemption. 
" The whole assembly shall kill it;" Ex. xii. 6. " Who killed 
the Lord Jesus;" 1 Thes. ii. 15. " Lo, in the midst of the 
throne stood a Lamb as it had been slain. And they sung a 
new song, saying, Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to 



THE PASSOVER IS A TYPE OF THE SUPPER. 593 

God by Thy blood. Worthy is the Lamb that was slain." 
Rev. v. 6-12. 

4. The Passover was a typical sacrifice in the realm of the 
natural, and Christ is a true sacrifice in the realm of the super- 
natural. "It is the sacrifice of the Lord's Passover." Exodus 
xii. 27. " Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us." Christ 
hath given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God. 
" When He said : Sacrifice and offering, and burnt-offering, 
and offering for sin, Thou wouldst not, neither hadst pleasure 
therein ; which are offered by the law ; then said He, Lo, I 
come to do Thy will, God ! He taketh away the first, that 
He may establish the second. By which will we are sanctified 
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." 
Psalm xl. 6-8 ; Heb. x. 8-10. " How much more shall the 
blood of Christ, who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered Him- 
self without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead 
works?" Heb. ix. 14. 

5. The Paschal Supper was a typical, natural eating of the 
typical, natural lamb ; the Lord's Supper is a true, supernatural 
eating of the true, supernatural Lamb : " And they shall eat 
the flesh in that night ; " Exod. xii. 8. " The bread that I will 
give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. 
Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, ye have no life in 
you. Whoso eateth My flesh hath eternal life. He that eateth 
My flesh dwelleth in Me. My flesh is meat indeed ; " John 
vi. 51-56. " Thus shall ye eat it," said Jehovah ; Exod. xii. 11. 
" Take, eat," said our Lord. 

6. The Paschal Supper was a typical, natural act ; the Lord's 
Supper is a true, supernatural act. " The cup of blessing which 
we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ? 
The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the 
body of Christ ? Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink 
this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body 
and blood of the Lord — he that eateth and drinketh unwor- 
thily, eateth and drinketh damnation (or judgment) to himself, 

NOT DISCERNING THE Lord's BODY ! " 1 Cor. X. 16 ; XI. 

7. The Paschal Supper was a natural communion of the 

38 



594 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

type ; the Lord's Supper is a supernatural communion of the 
substance. 

8. The Paschal Supper was a feast by which the typical was 
presented in, with, and under the natural ; the Lord's Supper 
is a feast by which the true is presented in, with, and under 
the natural. 

9. In the Paschal Supper the body of the typical lamb was 
received, together with the bread, after a natural manner ; in 
the Lord's Supper the body of the true Lamb is received, 
together with the bread, after a supernatural manner. 

10. The natural eating of the typical Paschal lamb belongs 
to the sphere of lower reality — that is, of mere earthly and 
carnal fact ; the supernatural eating of the true Paschal Lamb 
belongs to the sphere of higher reality — that is, of heavenly 
and spiritual truth. 

Thus does the dim twilight of the dawning Old Testament, 
if rightly used, open to us a purer vision of truth than unwill- 
ing eyes can find in the sunlight of the New Testament. How 
does the parallel run out into the minutest particulars between 
these representative institutions of the two great dispensations ! 

11. Of the Paschal festival, Jehovah said : " This day shall 
be unto you for a memorial; " of the Lord's Supper, the incar- 
nate Jehovah said : " This do in remembrance of Me." Luke 
xxii. 19. 

12. " The blood shall be to you for a token," says Jehovah. 
"This is My blood of the New Testament " — " the communion 
of the blood of Christ " — "is guilty ... of the blood of the 
Lord." 

13. " When I see the blood I will pass over you, and the 
plague shall not rest upon you," says Jehovah. " This is My 
blood," says our Lord, " shed for you and for many for the 
remission of sins." 

14. " Ye shall keep it a feast" says Jehovah. " Christ our 
passover is sacrificed for us, therefore let us keep the feast" 1 
Cor. v. 8, or as Luther, bringing out still more clearly this 
element in words, renders them : " We also have a Paschal 
lamb, that is Christ, offered for us, wherefore let us keep pass- 
over." (Oster-lamm, Ostern.) 



THE PASSOVER IS A TYPE OF THE SUPPER. 595 

15. " Ye shall keep it to the Lord . . throughout your gener- 
ations." " Ye do show the Lord's death till He come;" 1 
Cor. xi. 26. 

16. " The man that . . forbeareth to keep the passover, 
even the same soul shall be cut off from among his people." 
" Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, 
ye have no life in you." "Whosoever eateth leavened bread, 
that soul shall be cut off from Israel." " He that eateth and 
drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation [or judg- 
ment] to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this 
cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep." 
1 Cor. xi. 29, 30. 

17. " Strike the lintel . . with the blood." " This is My 
blood which is shed for many." " Ye are come to the blood 
of sprinkling" — " elect . . through sprinkling of the blood of 
Jesus Christ." 

18. "In one house shall it be eaten." "Having an high 
priest over the house of God " — " Christ whose house are we." 
"Ye come into one place." "The members of that one body, 
being many, are one body." " The bread which we break, is 
it not the communion of the body of Christ ? For we being 
many are one bread, and one body : for we are all partakers of 
that one bread." 

19. " Thou shalt not carry forth aught of the flesh abroad, out 
of the house ; " Ex. xii. 46. "We have an altar whereof they 
have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle ; " Heb. xiii. 10. 

20. " When a stranger shall sojourn with thee, and will keep 
the passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised, and 
then let them come near and keep it ; " Exod. xii. 48. " For by 
one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews 
or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free ; and have been all 
made to drink into one Spirit ; " 1 Cor. xii. 13. 

21. " One law shall be to him that is home-born, and unto 
the stranger that sojourneth among you ; " Exod. xii. 49. " As 
many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on 
Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond 
nor free, there is neither male nor female : for ye are all one in 
Christ Jesus." 



596 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

22. u AH the congregation of Israel shall keep it," (Hebrew : 
do it.) Exod. xii. 48. " Drink ye all of this ; this do ye, as 
oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of Me ; " Matt. xxvi. 27 ; 
1 Cor. xi. 25. 

Origen :* " Christ our passover is slain, and this feast is to 
be kept by eating the flesh of the Logos : " " on ro c».^a v^iuv 

s^v^sr, ^pidTog xaj yyr\ Eopra^siv s<rt)iov<ra <p*)S trapxoc: <rou Xo^ck;." Deza On 1 

Cor. v. 7. : " Our whole life should be in conformity with 
Christ, that feast of unleavened bread, in which we were made 
partakers of that spotless Lamb who was slain." Grotius : 
" As by the blood of the Paschal lamb the Israelites were 
delivered from destruction, so also Christians, by the blood of 
Christ, are liberated from the common ruin of mankind. That 
lamb was to be without fault, and Christ was without fault. 
(See Luke xxii. 16.) Christ, therefore, is the mystic passover, 
that is, the Paschal Lamb." On 1 Cor. v. 7. 

Amid all these transitions from type to fulfilment the change 
is never from the more true to the less true, nor from the real 
to the ideal, but there is either a coincidence in the natural 
with an elevated use in the New Dispensation, or a higher 
natural with a true supernatural attached to it. There is in 
both, for example, a coincidence in a real shedding of blood 
though in the shedding of Christ's blood there is a supernatural 
efficacy ; there is in both a real eating, but in the one the com 
munion effected is earthly, in the other it is heavenly. This 
then is the point to which these great Biblical truths irresisti 
•bly lead us, that Christ is the true paschal lamb, and the 
supper of Christ is the true paschal supper. What the 
paschal lamb of the Old Dispensation typified, Christ is ; and 
what the Paschal supper of the Old Dispensation typified, the 
supper of Christ is ; and that which is promised and shadowed 
in the Paschal supper is given in the Lord's Supper, in very deed 
and substance. The supernatural presence of Christ's body 
and blood cannot be less true, but is more true, than the natu- 
ral presence of the body and blood of the Paschal lamb. 

That the true relation between the two Paschal lambs and 
the two Paschal suppers should be most clear, it pleased God 

* Cont. Celsum VIII. 



THE PASSOVER IS A TYPE OF THE SUPPER. 597 

that there should be a coincidence in point of time between the 
ending of the shadow and the full appearing of the substance. 
The Sun of Revelation stood at its perfect zenith, and the 
shadow was cast no longer by the substance, because the 
shadow lay beneath Christ's feet. The sun stands henceforth, 
at its noontide, and we are done with shadows forever. There- 
fore it was written in God's purposes that the true Paschal 
Lamb should be slain at the feast of the old Passover. Our 
blessed Lord dwelt upon the time as in itself an essential ele- 
ment of the perfectness of His work : " With desire have I 
desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." Luke 
xxii. 15. " Before the feast of the Passover, Jesus knew that 
His hour was come." John xiii. 1. 

It was at the Passover time, in a Passover family group of 
disciples, in a room prepared for the Passover, that the Lord's 
Supper was instituted. The bread which our Lord brake was 
bread provided for the Passover. The cup which He blessed 
was filled with wine prepared for the Passover. It is a new 
Paschal Supper. But where is the slain lamb of this new 
Paschal? Where is that verity in it of which the unspotted 
lamb of the first Paschal is the type ? Where is that shed 
blood of which the shed blood of the first Paschal is the type ? 
Is it to be characteristic of the New Testament Paschal Supper 
that it shall have no Paschal lamb ; that there shall be bread 
and wine, but that the great element of the soul's nourishment, 
the lamb itself, of which these were but the accompaniments, 
and as attendants of which alone they were given, that the lamb 
shall be wanting ? " Christ our Passover, our Paschal Lamb, is 
slain for us ; therefore let us keep the feast ; " 1 Cor. v. 8. To 
feed upon the Paschal Lamb is the grand object of the feast, and 
if the Lord's Supper be but the taking of bread and wine, the true 
Paschal Lamb not being truly present, and not truly received, 
then is the substance more shadowy than the shadow, and the 
Christian at his Supper has less than the Jew at his Pass- 
over. Well might a childlike faith breathe a sigh, as it 
were an echo of the innocent words of Isaac : " My father ! 
behold the fire and the wood ; but where is the lamb ? " — 
but a faith like that of Abraham, in the light of a new dig- 



598 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

pensation, will answer : u My son, God has provided Himself 
a lamb." 

" They said one to another: It is manna. (Sept.: What is 
7. The manna this ? Ti esti touto.) And Moses said unto them, 
in the desert. rp^ g ^ g ^ Q b re ad (Sept.: outos o artos) which the Lord 
hath given you to eat. This is the thing (Sept.: Touto to rema) 
which the Lord hath commanded ; " Exod. xvi. 15. " I am 
the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, 
and are dead. This is the bread (outos estin o artos) which 
cometh down from heaven, that he that eateth of it may not 
die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven ; 
if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever ; and the 
bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the 
life of the world;" John vi. 49-57. "All (our fathers) did 
eat the same spiritual meat ; " 1 Cor. x. 3. Cyrill (Lib. iv. 
in John xvi.) : " The manna was not, therefore, the living 
food, but the sacred body of Christ is the food which nour- 
isheth to eternal life." Lombard (Lib. iv. Sentent.) : " That 
bodily bread brought the ancient people to the land of promise 
through the desert ; this heavenly food will carry the faithful, 
passing through the desert, to heaven." Gerhard , John (Loci 
xxii. ch. ii.): " By that bread which came down from heaven, 
that is by Christ's body, we are nourished, that we perish not 
with hunger in the desert of this world." 

In quoting the sixth chapter of John, as bearing on the 
Lord's Supper, it may be well, once for all, to say that it is 
quoted not on the supposition that it speaks of the Lord's Sup- 
per specifically, but that in stating the general doctrine of the 
life-giving power of Christ's flesh and blood, it states a doctrine 
under which the benefits of the sacramental eating come as a 
species. If we come into supernatural, blessed participation 
of Christ's flesh and blood, in the act of faith, without the 
Lord's Supper, a fortiori we have blessed participation of them 
in the act of faith with the Lord's Supper. The sixth of John 
treats of the grand end of which the Lord's Supper is the grand 
means. We partake of Christ's body and blood sacramentally, 
in order that we may partake of them savingly. Of the latter, 
not of the former, the sixth of John speaks. 



New 
Testament doc- 
trine of till 



THE SACRAMENTAL OBJECTS. 599 

The doctrine of the Lord's Supper, as the Lutheran Church 
believes it to be set forth in the New Testament, is thus denned 
in her great general Symbol, the Augsburg Confes- IL The 
sion : 

Of the holy Supper of our Lord, our Churches, Lord's "supper 
with one consent, teach and hold thetical,y stated ' 

1. That the true body and blood of Christ are the sacra- 
mental objects. 

2. That the sacramental objects are truly present in the 
Lord's Supper. 

3. That this true presence is under the form or species of 
bread and wine, 

4. That present, under this form or species, they are com- 
municated. 

5. That thus communicated, they are received by all com- 
municants. 

6. That the opposite doctrine is to be rejected. 

On each and all of these we affirm that the doctrine of the 
Evangelical Lutheran Church is the Scriptural doctrine. 

We affirm, first, then that it is a Scriptural doctrine, that 
the true body and blood of Christ are the sacramental objects ; 
that is, that apart from any questions on other L The Sacra . 
points, the true body and true blood of our Lord mental objects. 
are the objects set before us in the sacramental words, and 
whether their presence be offered to contemplation, to memory, 
to faith, or after a substantial, supernatural maimer, it is the 
true body and true Wood of Christ, of which we are to make 
our affirmation, or denial, when we state the doctrine of the 
Lord's Supper. 

By true body, we mean that body in which our Saviour was 
actually incarnate, as opposed to His mystical body, which is 
the Church, or any ideal or imaginary body. It is conceded 
that it was His true body, not His mystical body, which was 
given for us ; but Christ, in the Lord's Supper, says : " This is 
My body, which is given for you:" therefore the sacramental 
object is His true body. As neither His mystical body, nor 
the Holy Spirit dwelling in His body, nor a sign nor symbol 
of His body, nor a memorial of His body, nor faith in His 



600 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

body was given for us, but His true body itself was given, it 
and it alone, and neither one nor other of all the objects sub- 
stituted for it, is the first sacramental object. 

By His true blood, we mean that blood which was the 
actual seat of His human vitality, that " precious blood " 
wherewith we are bought. It was confessedly His true blood 
which was shed for the remission of sins ; but Christ, in the 
Lord's Supper, says : " This is My blood, which is shed for the 
remission of sins." Now, as neither a doctrine about His 
blood, nor the efficacy of His blood, nor the Holy Spirit uniting 
us with His blood, nor a sign, symbol, nor memorial of His 
blood, nor faith in His blood was shed for sins, and as His true 
blood alone was so shed, it, and none other of all the objects 
substituted for it, is the second sacramental object. 

Hence the objection is groundless that our Confession adds 
to Scripture by saying that Christ's true body is the sacramen- 
tal object, for although that adjective true, is not used in the 
words of the institution, the idea is there, if the body which 
was broken for us is Christ's true body, and His blood shed 
for us His true blood. Calvin, and even Zwingli, were com- 
pelled to concede so much. 

Hence also falls to the ground the charge of conflicting 
representations, when our theologians speak sometimes of the 
natural body, and sometimes of the glorified body of Christ as 
present. Christ's true body, His natural body, and His glorified 
body, are one and the same body in identity. The words true 
and natural, refer to its essence ; the word glorified refers to .its 
condition. The glorification of His body neither made it cease 
to be true nor natural. That is, it was no more an unreal, 
ideal, or imaginary body, after the glorification than before. 
It was identically the same body, but with a constant and 
plenary exercise of glorious properties. What He possessed, 
but did not ordinarily use in the days of His humiliation, He 
now constantly and fully exercises, and this new condition is 
called His glorification. Though His natural and true body is 
present, its condition is glorified. But though its condition is 
glorified, it is not in virtue of that glorification, but because 
of, and through its union as one person with God, that it is 



TEE TRUE PRESENCE. 601 

present. This presence is spiritual, when that word is opposed 
to carnal, but it is not spiritual when that word is opposed to 
true, as if His presence were something wrought by our spirits. 
His body is a spiritual body, as opposed to the present condi- 
tions and limitations of flesh and blood, but it is not spiritual 
as opposed to real and natural. All the pretended contradic- 
tions of our theology vanish when the terms of that theology 
are taken in the sense in which it uses them. 

We affirm it, secondly, to be a Scriptural doctrine that these 
sacramental objects, to wit: the true body and true 2 Tbe true 
blood of Jesus Christ, are truly present in the Lord's p^sence. 
Supper : Vere ad shit — icahrhaftiglkh gegeiucartig sei. 

A\ r e oppose a true presence, first, to the Zwinglian theory, 
that the presence of these objects is simply ideal, a presence to 
our memory or contemplation : secondly, to the theory set forth 
by Bucer in the Tetrapolitan Confession, further elaborated by 
Calvin, and now generally known as the Calvinistic, to wit : 
that the body and blood are present in efficacy through the 
working of the Holy Spirit, in the believing elect. In opposi- 
tion to the first, we affirm it to be Scriptural, that the presence 
is one wrought not by our ideas, memories, or contemplation, 
but is a presence equally true, whether we do or do not think, 
remember, contemplate, or believe. In opposition to the 
second, we affirm, that the efficacy of Christ's body and blood 
is not separable from them, but is wrought by them truly 
present ; that this efficacy is direct and personal, not mediated 
by the Holy Ghost, but by Christ Himself, substantially pres- 
ent ; that this presence does not depend for its reality (but 
alone for its salutary results) upon the faith of the receiver, 
and that its sole causes are the divine personality and benefi- 
cent will of the Institutor of the Supper. 

"We prove this, first, by the demands of all those types of the 
Old Testament which contemplate Christ as the Paschal Lamb, 
who is to be present in that nature in which He was slain, not 
after the shadowy mode of the old dispensation, but after the 
true mode of the new, in the New Testament Paschal. It is 
through His human nature that Christ is our Paschal Lamb 
sacrificed ; and, therefore, it must be through His human 



602 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

nature that Christ, our Paschal Lamb, is eaten. If it was 
not through His divinity, separate from His humanity, that He 
was sacrificed upon the cross, it cannot be that through His 
divine nature, separate from His humanity, He is given to us 
at His table. 

We prove it, secondly, by the demands of the type of Old 
Testament sacrifices, which were not only to be offered to God, 
but to be partaken of by the priests and offerers. That body 
and blood which were offered to the Father, and by Him 
accepted, must also be partaken of by those for whom they 
were offered, and the partaking must be a true one, as the 
offering itself was true — but in order to a true partaking, 
there must be a true presence. 

Thirdly, the words of the institution force us to this con- 
clusion. For if it even be granted for a moment, for argu- 
ment's sake, that these words might be taken symbolically, 
the symbol only postpones, by one process, the general result, 
but by no means sets it aside. A symbol must be the symbol 
of some real thing ; and there must be a point of analogy to 
constitute a symbol ; a sign must point to the reality of which 
it is a sign ; a symbolical act presupposes a real corresponding 
act ; and something symbolically done to a symbol implies that 
something, to which that is analogous, is to be, or ought to 
be, really done to a real object. Why, then, is bread the 
symbol of Christ's body — not (as we have already shown) 
the symbol of a doctrine about that body, or of its efficacy, 
but of the body itself? What is the point of analogy ? It 
must be that both are food. Then Christ's body must be con- 
ceded to be true food, or bread cannot be the symbol of it. 
But if Christ's true body be conceded to be true food, then the 
symbol has brought us to the acknowledgment of a true pres- 
ence somewhere — but if there be a true presence anywhere, 
it will not be denied that it is in the Lord's Supper. Further- 
more, if bread be the symbol of a true body, breaking bread 
the symbol of a true breaking of a true body, then the eating 
of that bread must be the symbol of a true eating of a true 
body ; but if it be granted that this takes place anywhere, it 
will not be denied that it takes place in the Lord's Supper. 



TEE TRUE PRESENCE. 603 

Thus is the theory of the symbol really subversive of itself, 
unless it be contended that we eat symbolically in the Supper 
what we eat truly elsewhere, which no one is likely to main- 
tain. The parallelism may be made more obvious by present- 
ing it in a tabular view : 



SYMBOL. 


REALITY. 


1. Bread. 


1. True Body. 


2. Breaking of Bread. 


2. True Breaking of True Body. 


3. Eating of Broken Bread. 


3. True Eating of True Body, 




truly Broken. 


4. Cup (Contents). 


4. True Blood. 


5. Pouring Out. 


5. True Blood, truly shed. 


6. Drinking. 


6. True Drinking of True 




Blood, truly shed. 



But it is impossible, on sound principles of interpretation, to 
find a symbol in the words of the Institution. The Eucharist 
combines three characters which forbid such an idea. 1. It 
is a Supper. 2. It is Testamentary. 3. It is a Covenanting 
Bite. 

1. When at a Supper a guest has offered to him anything, 
with the request to eat, and with assignment of the reason, 
This is so and so — all laws of language lead us to expect that 
the thing so offered shall be not the sign, symbol, or memo- 
rial of that which is to be eaten, but shall be the very thing 
designated. If the words of the Institution had been : " Jesus 
said, Take, eat, this is bread" would not the man be thought 
to trifle who would urge that He gave them, not bread, but a 
sign, symbol, or memorial of bread ? Would he help himself 
by appealing to interpretations of dreams, to parables, meta- 
phors, figures, and symbols ? By no means. Men would ask 
him for an instance in which, at a supper, any one had said : 
" Take, eat, this is bread," meaning that it was not bread, but 
a symbol of bread. Who would say, seriously, at a supper, 
handing a man a book : " Take, eat, this is sponge-cake," mean- 
ing that, as a sponge-cake is light and pleasant to the body, so 
is the book of which it is a symbol a light work, and pleas- 
ant to the mind ? Why is it that the Supper of our Lord 



604 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

stands separate in the world in this, that in it alone, in any 
sense, symbolical or sacramental, imaginary or real, the guests 
are invited to participate in the body of Him of whom it is the 
memorial ? Does not this fact alone demonstrate that Christ's 
body is solitary in its powers and relations to men ; that lan- 
guage in regard to it belongs to a wholly different sphere from 
that which pertains to the bodies of other men ; that we can 
affirm of it what would be worse than blasphemy, what would 
be incoherent raving, if made in regard to any but Christ ? 
Would any man at a supper devoted to the memory of Wash- 
ington offer bread, and say : " Take, eat, this is Washington's 
body " ? Would he use such language at all, or, if he did, could 
he mean therebj- that the spirit of Washington, or his princi- 
ples, or the efficacy of the work he had wrought through his 
body, are the support of our civil life, as bread supports the 
natural life ? These suppositions look so monstrous that we 
can hardly think of them gravely as they really are, that is as 
actual parallels to the mode of interpretation substituted for 
that of our Church, by men who pronounce our doctrine 
unscriptural. It is not overstating the fact to declare that as 
a question of the laws of language, apart from philosophical 
speculation or doctrinal system, the meaning of the words : 
" Take, eat, this is My body," are as clear as any passage from 
Genesis to Revelation. Dr. Hodge says that the words have 
been the subject of an immense amount-of controversy, but so 
have been the clear words which teach the Trinity, the Divin- 
ity of our Lord, the eternity of future punishments ; not that 
they are not clear, but that men will not admit them in their 
obvious sense. A doctrine is not proved to be disputable sim- 
ply because it is disputed. 

Finally, to put this point in a just light, suppose that our 
Lord at the Supper had said : " Take, eat, this is bread," and 
that men had arisen, who, in the face of this clear testimony, 
had said it was not bread of which He spoke, but His body, 
and His body only, how would the patrons of the Zwinglian 
theory, which in that case would have been related to the words 
supposed, as the Lutheran view now is to the words used, how 
would they have received such an interpretation ? They would 



THE TRUE PRESENCE. 605 

have received it with, astonishment and reprobation, just as 
their own interpretation deserves to be regarded, when our 
Lord Jesus, stating what is that very thing for the reception 
of which the Supper was instituted, says : " Take, eat, this is 
My body." If our Master's words would have been clear 
according to the laws of language, in the terms we have, for 
illustration's sake, supposed Him to have used, then equally 
clear, according to the same laws, are the words which He did 
use. He who believes that the words supposed would have 
proved that our Lord desired to communicate to His disciples 
bread, must believe, if he be consistent, that the words He 
actually used prove that He desired to communicate to them 
His body. If he objects to the latter inference, then his objec- 
tion is derived, not from the laws of language, but from phil- 
osophical or rationalistic principles, which he is determined 
shall override the clear word. Hence, we repeat the thought, 
and close this part of the argument with it, that the meaning 
of the terms of the Institution, as a pure question of language, 
is as clear as the meaning of any part of the Word of God — 
and that meaning is the one which our Church accepts and 
confesses. If the absolute authority of God's Word stands, 
the sacramental doctrine of our Church stands, for if it be 
incontrovertible that it is unsound to interpret, " This is 
bread," as meaning, '" This is not bread, but is My body only," 
it is equally incontrovertible that it is unsound to interpret, 
" This is My body," as meaning, " This is not My body, but 
bread only." 

2. The words of the Eucharist are also Testamentary — they 
are the Words of the Will of our Lord, who is about to die, and 
who invests His heirs with that whose possession gave them 
all that He desired to secure to them. But who ever heard of 
a will which bequeathed signs or symbols — not real posses- 
sions — to the heirs ? If a will were produced in which the 
Testator had said : It is my wish and will that M. IT. should 
have such and such a tract of land and so many thousand dol- 
lars ; and when M. H". came to claim land and money, he was 
told that this " tract of land " was a sign or symbol of the 
Heavenly Canaan, which is the home of the soul, as an earthly 



606 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

tract of land may be the residence of the body ; and that the 
thousands of dollars were simply a sign of incorruptible treas- 
ures in the other world ; and that the testator meant only that 
it was his wish and will that M. N". should have these good 
things of the other world, would he consider this sound inter- 
pretation ? When Christ gives us Himself, He gives us every- 
thing. His body and blood are the organs of His Deity. In 
giving them to us He gives all to us ; but in giving to us 
the mere signs of them, He would give us very little. All 
bread is, as such, equally a symbol of His body ; all wine is a 
symbol of His blood. Give us but these symbols at His Testa- 
mentary Supper, and we have at the Lord's Supper only what 
we may have at every meal. What we want is Christ Himself, 
not symbols of Him. 

But were the case less clear in regard to the Testamentary 
words, were it possible with equal propriety to embrace a strict 
or a loose acceptation of them, still the law holds good, that 
where a dispute arises in which it is impossible to settle which 
one of two meanings is the correct one, the preference shall be 
given to the more literal of the two ; and this rule is good 
here. If we run the risk of erring, let it be by believing our 
Lord too far, too closely, too confidingly, rather than by doubt- 
ing or by trying to explain away the natural import of His 
words. 

3. The Lord's Supper is a Covenanting Institution. But in 
a Covenant as in a Testament, the things mutually conveyed and 
received are not the signs nor symbols of things, but things 
themselves. Whenever, as in the case of a will, disputes arise 
as to a literal or a laxer meaning, that interpretation, other 
things being equal, is always safest which adheres most closely 
to the very letter of the terms. 

But the character of the covenanting words is yet further 
settled by their obvious allusion to the terms of the Old Cove- 
nant. " Moses took the blood of calves and of goats, and 
sprinkled both the books and all the people, saying : This is 
the blood of the Testament which God hath appointed unto 
you." It is with these words in His mind that our Lord says : 
" This is My blood (not the blood of calves and of goats) of the 



THE TRUE PRESENCE. 607 

New Testament " (not of the Old). Surely, if in the forming 
of the Old Covenant, which is a covenant of shadows, types 
and symbols, there was true blood, not the sign or symbol of 
blood, much more in the forming of the New Covenant, which 
is one of body, substance, and reality, we have not the symbol 
of blood, but the true blood of the great sacrifice. 

4. Let us now look for a moment at the words of the Insti- 
tution singly: " Take, eat ; this is My body given for you." 
The Lutheran Church confesses that each word in this sentence 
is to be understood literally. The taking is a true taking, the 
eating a true eating. " This " means this — this which I tell 
you to take, this which I tell you to eat, this is, truly is, " My 
body," My true body truly given for My disciples. How have 
those who favored a symbolical interpretation evaded the natu- 
ral force of these words ? 

Against a sense so natural, so direct, so universally received 
by the Holy Church of all ages, in its great assertion of an 
objective presence of Christ's body and blood, its opponents 
were bound to produce, not merely as probable a sense, but one 
more probable. They were bound in undertaking to shake the 
faith of Christendom, to produce an interpretation capable of 
a clear statement, and of invincible proofs. They were morally 
bound to have some agreement as to what was to be substituted 
for the received interpretation, and by what principles its neces- 
sity was to be demonstrated from God's Word. This they have 
attempted for nearly three centuries and a half, and up to this 
hour the failure has been total in every respect. Luther records 
seven of their conflicting interpretations. At the beginning 
of the seventeenth century there were twenty-eight contradic- 
tory views urged by Calvinists. Yorstius confessed that " he 
hardly knew whether the figure is in the copula or the pre- 
dicate " — a confession really that he did not know that it is 
in either. But Zwingli happily suggests that among all their 
diversities, the opponents of the doctrine are agreed in the 
effort to throw down the citadel. So that is done, it matters 
little what arms are used. The efforts of our century have 
brought the opponents of the literal interpretation no nearer 
together. .They are as far as ever from a fixed sense of the 



608 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

words, or a principle by which the sense can ever be fixed. 
There is no position midway between the implicit acceptance 
of the literal sense, and the chaos of eternal doubt. 

The first view which was arrayed against that of our Church 
was the view of Carlstadt. He admitted the literal force of 
every term in the Institution, and interpreted thus: The 
Saviour said, " Take, eat," and came to a full pause. Then 
pointing, as it were, with His finger to His body, He uttered as 
a distinct proposition, " This body is My body." It is hardly 
necessary to add that so preposterous an interpretation found 
few friends. Zwingli himself rejected it, and Carlstadt with- 
drew it.* 

The word Take these interpreters have usually construed 
literally, though why an imaginary body, or the symbol of a 
body, might not be taken mentally, they cannot say. Men do 
not open doors because a door is a symbol of Christ : why 
should they take and eat bread because it is a symbol of His 
body ? A symbol is addressed to the mind ; it derives its being 
and takes its shape from the mind of the user, and is intellec- 
tually received by the person to whom it is addressed. The 
mere symbol cannot be so identified with its object, as that an 
inference from the object is logically applicable to the symbol, 
or from the symbol, logically applicable to the object. We can- 
not say of one door more than another, " That door is Christ," 
but still less could we draw an inference from the symbol to 
the object, or from the object to the symbol. 

The symbolic theory, even were we to grant its assumption, 
can give no intelligible reason for the statement, " This bread 
is My body ; This cup is My blood," for as a symbol, this 
bread is no more Christ's body than any other bread ; as one 
lamb, one vine, or one shepherd, is no more a symbol of Christ 
than another. The symbol is founded on the common quality 
of the thing symbolizing ; the innocence of all lambs, the 
nutritious character of all bread, the means of access furnished 
by every door. It is evident that as it is only after Christ's 
blessing the bread, that it is true that " This," which He now 
commands us to " Take, eat," is His body — and that this 

*Walch: Bibl. Theol. II. 419. 



THE TRUE PRESENCE. 609 

bread was just as much a symbol of His body before the bless- 
ing as after it, and was and is, just as much a symbol out of the 
sacrament as in it — that the " this " cannot refer to the bread 
merely, nor can the bread in the Supper be no more than a 
symbol. There is true body and true bread, so related that 
the true bread is the medium of the sacramental communion 
of the true body, and for tbis reason only could it be true, that 
" this " bread, more than any other, could be called the body 
of our Lord. Just as it would be blasphemy to say, " Man is 
God," and is yet literally true of Christ, " This man is God," 
so would it be blasphemy to say, "Bread is Christ's body," and 
yet it is literally true, " This bread is Christ's body." This 
man is God personally, because of the personal union, and This 
bread is the body of Christ sacramen tally because of the sac- 
ramental union. "We cannot hand an empty purse and say, 
"This is a thousand dollars ; " but we can hand a, full one and 
say so. 

The word Eat they have interpreted literally, though why 
the eating ought not to be done symbolically or mentally, to 
correspond with the symbolical or mental character of the 
body, they cannot say. Certainly there are plenty of instances 
of a figurative use of the word " Eat," while there are none of 
such a use of the word " is." The Quakers are more consistent. 

The word " this," they have interpreted variously. The 
renowned Schwenckfeld gets at its meaning by reading the 
Saviour's words backwards thus : My body is this, that is, 
My body is bread — nourishes the soul as real bread nourishes 
the body. That is, he makes the subject " this," the predicate ; 
and the predicate " My body," the subject. Those who have 
entered the lists against the doctrine of our Church, usually 
insist that " this " qualifies " bread " understood, that is, the 
pronoun touto, which is neuter, qualifies the noun which is 
masculine. Determined to be fettered by no laws of language, 
they abrogate the rule — that a pronoun shall agree with the 
noun it qualifies in gender. 

Some theologians who have attacked the faith of our Church, 
have, in order to make their work easy, been pleased to invent 
arguments and positions for her. They have, of course, been 

39 



610 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

able to do with their imaginary arguments for her what they 
could not do with her real arguments for herself. They have 
found that upsetting the men of straw, of their own making, 
was very different from uprooting the everlasting foundations 
of the temple reared by God. One of these weak inventions 
is, that our Church adopts this ungrammatical construction 
of a neuter pronoun with a masculine noun, and that hence 
she after all deserts the literal sense of the word, and that 
her interpretation really is : " This (bread) is not My body, 
but in, with, and under it My body is given." But as the 
Church does not consider the neuter pronoun as qualifying 
the masculine noun, and does not interpolate the word bread, 
but takes our Lord's words precisely as He utters them, all 
this ingenuity is thrown away. It only shows how she 
might have argued, had she possessed as little grammar, as 
little logic, and as little reverence for her Master's words 
as is exhibited by such antagonists. From the words : 
u This is My body," she only gathers this : " This is Christ's 
body ; " and neither on the one hand that the bread is not 
His body, nor on the other that His body is given in, with, 
and under it. She acknowledges that the ecclesiastical (not 
Biblical) phrase " This bread is Christ's body," sets forth a 
truth, as the Church uses and understands it; and from a 
comparison of text with text, she knows that the bread is the 
medium by which, in which, with which, under which the 
body is imparted, but she reaches this by no reading out of the 
text what is in it, nor reading into it, what is no part of it ; 
but by interpreting every word in that natural and proper 
sense, which is fixed by the laws of language. Our Saviour 
says, Take, and we take ; He says, Eat, and we eat ; He says : 
This (which He has just told us to take, eat) is My body, and 
we believe it. The affirmation is as literal as the command, 
and we believe the one as we obey the other, to the letter, no 
more understanding His affirmation to be, This is not My body, 
than we understand His command to be, Do not take, Do not 
eat. 

" My body" some have interpreted to mean " symbol of My 
body," but as this would make the Saviour say that the " sym- 



THE TRUE PRESENCE. 611 

bol of His body," not His body itself, was given for us, the 
symbol of His blood, not His blood itself was shed for us, this 
view is generally abandoned. It was the view of (Ecolampa- 
dius, the Melanchthon of Zwingli in the Swiss Reformation, but 
far greater than his master. He was too good a scholar to be 
ignorant that the metaphor, if there be one, must lie in one of 
the nouns connected, and not in the substantive verb Avhich 
connects them. As the bread was indubitably literal bread, he 
saw that he must either make " body " metaphorical, or aban- 
don the idea of metaphor. The later divines of this general 
school rejected this theory with an earnestness which shows 
that they were ashamed of it. Thus Beza:* "The words 
which follow, to wit, ' which is given for you ' and ' which is 
shed for you,' compel us to understand the words of the very 
substance itself of the body and blood of Christ." " We do not 
doubt that by the term body is meant that very body which was 
assumed for our sakes and crucified." This view of Beza was, 
indeed, the view of the whole body of Calvinistic theologians, 
with few and inconsiderable exceptions. The sole refuge left, 
therefore, for the disputer of the doctrine of our Church, is 
in the word "is." The word "is," Zwingli f and those who 
follow him say means "represents, signifies, is a symbol 

* Epis. 5, ad Alaman. III. 202, and Adv. Illyricum, 217. 

f Zwingli did not originate this interpretation. He adopted it from Honius, a 
contemporary whose name is now almost forgotten. Zwingli's account of the 
growth of his own theory is very interesting. He says: " I saw that the words 
' This is My body,' are figurative, but I did not see in what word the figure lay. At 
this point, by the grace of God, it happened that two learned and pious men 
came to consult on this matter; and when they heard our opinion (for they had 
concealed their own, for it was not then safe to express opinions on the subject 
freely) they thanked God, and gave me an untied package, the letter of a learned 
and pious Hollander (Honius). In it I found this precious pearl that 'is' here means 
' signifies.'' When we were compelled to explain our opinions openly it seemed 
more discreet to open with that key the word in which the figure lies, than sim- 
ply to say : It is a figure."— Opera, Turk., 1832. Vol. III. 606. 

This frank history shows that Zwingli framed his theory first, and cherished 
it for some time before he could see how the Word of God was to be harmonized 
with it. Even when he came to see that " is " means "signifies," he could find 
no evidence of it, till it was revealed to him in that extraordinary vision of the 
man of dubious color, which was so mercilessly ridiculed in the old contro- 
versies. 



612 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of." Hence they draw the inference that our Saviour means : 
" This [bread] [represents, is a symbol of] My body." Because 
then it is to be a symbol of His broken body, He breaks this 
bread, and because it is to be a symbol of His body given, He 
gives this bread, and because it is to be a symbol of His body 
taken, they take this bread — and what then? — because it is 
to be a symbol of His body eaten, they eat this bread. The 
symbol does not help its friends very far nor very long. 

We have shown, that the laws of language forbid the appli- 
cation of the symbol here, even if the words in the abstract 
would allow of it. We now go farther, and maintain that the 
word " is " cannot have the sense of " signify or be a symbol 
of." Taking the two terms as convertible, as they have 
always been taken in this controversy by those who defend 
them, we prove this : * 

1. By the fact that no translations, ancient or modern, with 
any pretension to character, so render the word. We assert, 
after a careful examination of all of those that have most 
reputation, that not one so translates the word, whether they 
originate in the Eastern, Western, Lutheran, or Reformed 
Churches. TsTo man of character has ever dared to insert into 
the text of his translation : This is a symbol of My body. 
Where such terms as " means," " amounts to," or " signifies " 
are used, though a superficial reader might imagine that they 
are substituted for " is," they are really designed to express an 
idea involved in the predicate. This use of them rests on the 
fact that " is " always means " is." Twice two amount to four 
means that twice two are four. Leo signifies lion, means that 
Leo is lion. But we can neither say twice two signify four, 
nor Leo amounts to lion, still less that twice two are a symbol 
of four, or Leo is a symbol of a lion. 

*Zwingli (De Vera et Falsa Relig. Opera, Turici., 1832. III. 257, 258): "This 
signifies (significat) My body. . . This thing, to wit, which I offer you to eat, is the 
symbol (symbolum est) of My body. . . This which I now command you to eat and 
drink shall be to you a symbol (symbolum erit). . . As often as ye eat this sym- 
bolic bread (panem symbolicum) " — and so innumerably. "To be a symbol of," 
or "to signify" in the sense of "be a symbol of," is the characteristic, fixed 
Zwinglian interpretation of the word "is." 



METAPHOR. 613 

2. ~8o impartial dictionary of the Greek, whether general or 
New Testament, assigns such a meaniug to the word. "Where 
such a meaning is assigned, it is manifestly for the very pur- 
pose of promoting this false view, for doctrinal reasons, 
either rationalistic, as in such dictionaries as Schleusner's, or 
Zwinglian, as in Parkhurst's. 

3. ISTo good dictionary of the English assigns such a mean- 
ing to the English verb " to he ; " no good dictionary of the 
Hebrew or of any language of which we know anything, assigns 
such a meaning to the verb corresponding in each with our 
verb to be, or with the Greek Eimi. 

4. The expositors and dogmaticians who, for philosophical 
or theological reasons, have been forced to maintain that the 
word " is " means " is a symbol of," have utterly failed to pro- 
duce a solitary instance in which the word is so used. 

Let us look at some of the passages that have been cited to 
prove that "is" may mean " is a symbol of." Passages such 
as these are favorites: "I am the vine, ye are the branches." 
" I am the door." " I am the bread of life." But if the word 
" is " means " is a symbol of," then Christ would say : " I am 
the symbol of a vine," " I am the symbol of a door," " I am the 
symbol of bread," which is absurd. 

18 or do such passages as 1 Cor. x. 4, help the symbolical 
theory at all : " They all drank of that Spiritual Rock that 
followed (or went with them): and that Rock was Christ." 
The meaning of that passage is, that the real spiritual Rock 
which attended them was the manifested Jehovah, that is, the 
second person of the Trinity, Christ Himself in His preexistent 
state. God is a rock ; God is our true support ; our 

. Metaphor. 

true support is God. The resolution into the literal 
lies in the word rock, not in the word " is." So when we say, 
Christ is the door, the vine, the foundation, the corner-stone, 
the resolution of the expression into what is absolutely literal, 
turns not upon the word "is," but on the word "door," 
" vine," or other noun, as the case may be. If you take Web- 
ster's Dictionary, or any other good dictionary, you will not 
find that the substantive verb " to be " means to signify, but 
you will find that the fifth meaning given to the word door is 



614 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

" means of approach ; " and you will find it quotes, as proof of 
that meaning : " I am the door ; by Me if any man enter in, he 
shall he saved." But if when we say, Christ is the door, we 
do not mean Christ is the symbol of the door, neither can 
we mean, when we say the door is Christ, that the door is the 
symbol of Christ. We mean in the one case, that Christ is 
really and truly, not symbolically, the door — that is, He is the 
real means of approaching God ; and in the other, that the true 
and real means of approach, the real door, is truly (not sym- 
bolizes) Christ. That is, the predicate and subject are just the 
same in the second form of the sentence as in the first. " Christ " 
is the subject, " door " the predicate, in both ; but in the second 
there is an inversion of the more common order, in which the 
subject comes first. "When I point to a particular door, and 
say, that door is a symbol of Christ, the word door is literal, 
and means a door of wood ; but when I say the door, is Christ, 
the word door is not taken literally, but the word is must be 
so taken. Christ is the vine, the vine is Christ — Christ is not 
a symbol of the vine, but is the true vine itself; the true vine 
is not a symbol of Christ, but is Christ. We say that Wash- 
ington was the pillar of his country, or the pillar of our coun- 
try was Washington ; no more meaning that the pillar was a 
symbol of Washington, than that Washington was the symbol 
of a pillar ; but meaning that Washington was the true pillar 
of our country, and that the true pillar of our country was 
Washington ; the word pillar meaning in each case a support. 
We could not lay hold of a literal pillar and say : Lean on this, 
trust in this ; this is that General Washington who fought 
for our country. We could not bring a man to a vine and say : 
Attach yourself to this vine ; this is Cbrist : or direct him to a 
particular door, and say : Go through, enter in ; this door is 
Christ. 

There is no parallel in the interpretation of dreams. " The 
three branches (are) three days." Gen. xl. 12. "The seven 
good kine (are) seven years, and the seven good ears (are) 
seven years." Gen. xli. 16. " The seven thin kine (are) seven 
years of famine." 1. There is no "are" in the original. 2. 
The " branches," " kine," and " ears " are not real branches, 



Z WING LI'S REVELATION. 615 

real kine, nor real ears, but the ideals of a dream. It is not 
three branches, but the three branches of the dream that are 
three days. The seven dream -branches, dream -kine, and 
dream -ears are, to speak literally — to drop the idea of a 
dream — seven years. 3. If " is," in interpreting 
a dream, and because it so interprets, meant " sig- 
nifies," it would have no bearing on the Lord's Supper, which 
is not the interpretation of a dream. 4. "The seven empty 
ears shall be seven years of famine." Does that mean "shall 
signify," as if they did not equally signify then? or does it 
mean that the empty ears, if we express what they really are 
and are to be, shall be "seven years of famine "? 5. Would 
the inference be justifiable from this dream, that : Take, eat ; 
these are seven ears prepared for your food — means that there 
were no ears, but only symbols of ears ? Pluck and strip ; 
these are branches covered with delicious fruit — that there 
were no branches, no fruit, but symbols of them ? If it would 
not, there is no parallel. 

When Zwingli supposed that he saw that " is " means " sig- 
nifies, is a symbol of," a formidable difficulty still stood in the 
way. He could not find a passage in the Old or New Testa- 
ment in which it had that sense, when, as he expresses it, " it 
was not conjoined with a parable." "We began, therefore, to 
think over the whole, revolve the whole ; still the examples 
which occurred were the same I had used in the Commentary 
(on True and False Religion), or of the same kind. I am about 
to narrate a fact — a fact of such a kind that I zwingirsRev.- 
would wish to conceal it, but conscience compels me latl011 - Exxu - 1L 
to pour forth what the Lord has imparted,, though I know to what 
reproach and ridicule I am about to expose myself. On the 
thirteenth of April I seemed to myself, in a dream, to contend 
with an adversary, a writer, and to have lost my power of 
speech, so that what I knew to be true my tongue failed me in 
the effort to speak. . . Though, as concerns ourselves, it be no 
more than a dream we are telling, yet it is no light thing that 
we were taught by a dream, thanks be to God, to whose glory 
also we are telling these things. We seemed to be greatly dis- 
turbed. At this point, from a machine," (the theatrical appa- 



616 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ratus by which supernatural persons were made to appear in 
the air,) " an adviser was present (whether he was black or 
white I do not at all remember ; for it is a dream I am telling;), 
who said : You weakling I answer him that in Exod. xii. 11, it 
is written : ' It is the Phase — that is, the Passing over of the Lord.' 
On the instant that this apparition showed itself I sprung from 
my couch. I first examined the passage thoroughly in the 
Septuagint, and preached upon it before the whole congrega- 
tion with all my strength. This sermon dispelled the doubts 
of the students, who had hesitated because of the obstacle of 
the parable " (that " is " meant " signify " only when a Para- 
ble was explained). " Such a Passover of Christ was celebrated 
on those three days as I never saw, and the number of those, it 
is thought, who look back to the garlic and flesh-pots of Egypt 
is going to be far less."* This narrative speaks for itself. 
Zwingli confesses that he came to the Scripture to find argu- 
ment for opinions already formed — opinions held, while the 
search in which he was eno-aged for something to sustain them 
was still fruitless. He claims, evidently, the character of a 
supernatural revelation for his dream ; and there is something 
inimitable in the simple egotism of his expectation that his 
discovery is going to damage the cause of the hankerers after 
the flesh-pots of Egypt, by which he gracefully designates 
Luther and the Conservative Church of the Reformation. 
And yet the passage which to Zwingli seemed so decisive does 
not help him in the least. In the words, Exod. xii. 11, " It (is) 
the Lord's Passover," Zwingli assumes that " it " means " the 
lamb," and that the sentence consequently results : " The lamb 
is the Passover," that is, the lamb signifies, or is the sign or 
symbol of the Passover. But 1 : The word " is " is not there. 
This was at once objected to Zwingli's view by those whom he 
styles " the brawlers " (vitilitigatores). He meets it by main- 
taining that " no one, unless he be ignorant of Hebrew, is una- 
ware that Hua and Hayo, Hainan, and Hanah, are constantly 
taken for ' he is, 9 ' it is, 9 ' they are,' where they are not con- 
joined with the verb."f But the answer was not to the point. 
Zwingli was to furnish a passage from the Word of God in 

*Zwinglii Opera. Turici. 1832. III. 341. f Opera. III. 344. 



ZWINGLVS REVELATION. 617 

which "is" means "a symbol of." The passage on which he 
relies does not have the word " is " at all. He replies in effect, 
the Word is understood, and if it were there it would have that 
sense. But the fact that it is not there shows that it is the mere 
substantive copula, and can have no such sense as Zwingli 
claims. If "is" be involved in the subject, then all symbolical 
possibility must lie in the predicate. Zwingli makes no appeal to 
the Septuagint on this point : First, because the thing demanded 
was an instance of a divine use of " is " in the sense " be a 
symbol of." It was acknowledged, on the conservative side, 
that the Hebrew substantive verb has the same general force 
in the Greek, and, therefore, Zwingli appealed to the Hebrew. 
He could not appeal here to the Septuagint, for it is hut a 
human translation. The question was not one of Greek, but 
of the divine use of the substantive verb, common to both 
Hebrew and Greek. Second: Apart from this, the Septuagint 
is decisive against Zwingli, for it makes the proposition imper- 
sonal : "Passover is to the Lord," not at all: "The Lamb is 
the passover." 2 : The " it " does not refer to the lamb — but 
to the whole transaction which takes place with girded loins, 
and the eating of the lamb. The " it " is used indefinitely, as 
if we would say, " Let us gather round the cheerful hearth, 
let us light up the children's tree, for it is Christmas." The 
reason of the name " Passover " follows in the twelfth verse. 
" It is the Lord's Passover. For I will pass through the land." 
What sense is there in the words : The lamb is a symbol of the 
Passover, for I will pass through it ? 3 : In no sense in 
which the word " Passover" could hold, whether in the act of 
angelic transition, or the feast instituted to commemorate it, 
could the lamb signify, or be a symbol of it. The lamb was 
that whose body was literally slain, and whose blood was liter- 
ally shed, in making the Passover Covenant. It was not a 
symbol of the passing over of the angel, for there is no analogy 
between a slain lamb and a passing over. It was not a symbol 
of the Feast of the Passover, but the chief material of the 
feast. Nor was the lamb a memorial of the original passing 
over. The Passover feast itself, as a whole, was. Nor was 
the lamb a memorial of this feast, but simply a chief ele- 



618 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

merit in it. 4 : The word " Passover " here means the festival, 
not the transition itself. 5 : If the lamb conld be called the 
Passover feast, it would be so called, not because the lamb sig- 
nified the feast, but because the feast was made on the lamb. 
6 : If the words had been used at an actual supper, and had 
been " Take, eat, This is the body of the Paschal Lamb slain 
for you," could Zwingli's interpretation of the verse in ques- 
tion overthrow the literal meaning of " is " in them ? If not, 
there is no parallel. 

The allegory seems no better as a parallel. The allegory 

leads us into a world where a being or thing is the designed 

ideal representative of another. The bundle on 

Allegory. . 

Christian's back is the burden of sin. The lions 
are terrors in the way. Vanity Fair is the godless world, the 
dark river is death — that is, says the slovenly interpreter, sig- 
nifies or is a sign of. Now an actual burden in real life may 
be a symbol of a spiritual burden ; living lions may be symbols 
of the terrible ; a real river a symbol of death ; but the bundle, 
lions, river of the allegory are as ideal as the symbol. In an 
allegory, moreover, the framer has the reality in his mind 
before the ideal representative. The real is throughout the 
subject, the allegorical representative the predicate. Hence, to 
put them in their proper attitude both as to time and logical rela- 
tion, Ave should say the burden of sin is the bundle on Chris- 
tian's back ; the terrors are the lions ; death is the dark river. 
That is the meaning even in the inverted order in which we 
first put them — but the burden of sin is not the symbol of a 
bundle — death not the symbol of a river. Hence the struc- 
ture of an allegory not only does not sustain the Zwinglian 
interpretation of the words of the institutor, but overthrows 
it — for it demonstrates that the subject is not the symbol of 
the predicate, but Zwingli's theory assumes that it is. But 
were it otherwise, the Lord's Supper is no allegory. 

A more dangerous falsity in interpretation, than the assump- 
tion that the word " is " may be explained in the sense of " sig- 
nify," or " be a symbol of," is hardly conceivable. Almost 
every doctrine of the Word of God will melt under it. " The 
Word was God" would mean " The Word signified was a 



ALLEGORY. 619 

symbol of God." " God is a Spirit " would mean " God is 
the symbol of a Spirit." When it is said of Jesus Christ : " This 
is the true God," it would mean that He is the symbol or image 
of the true God. By it Christ would cease to be the way, the 
truth, and the life, and would be a mere symbol of them ; would 
no longer be the door, the vine, the Good Shepherd, the Bishop 
of Souls, but would be the symbol of a door, the sign of a vine, 
the figure of a shepherd, the representation of a Bishop. This 
characteristic of the use of " is " is essential to the very moral- 
ity of language, and language itself would commit suicide if 
it could tolerate the idea that the substantive verb shall express 
not substance but symbol. Creation, Redemption, and Sancti- 
fication would all fuse and be dissipated in the crucible of this 
species of interpretation. It would take the Bible from us, 
and lay upon our breasts, cold and heavy, a Swedenborgian 
night mare of correspondences. The Socinian, and the Pela- 
gian, and all errorists of all schools, would triumph in the 
throwing of everything into hopeless confusion, and the Infidel 
would feel that the Book he has so long feared and hated, de- 
prived, as it now would be, of its vitality by the trick of inter- 
preters, could, henceforth, be safely regarded with contempt. 

Well might Luther write upon the table at Marburg : " This 
is My body ; " simple words, framed by infinite wisdom so as 
to resist the violence and all the ingenuity of men. Rational- 
ism in vain essays to remove them with its cunning, its learn- 
ing, and its philosophy. Fanaticism gnashes its teeth at them 
in vain. They are an immovable foundation for faith in the 
Sacramental mystery, and the gates of hell cannot shake the 
faith of the Church, that our Lord Jesus with the true body 
and true blood which He gave for our redemption on the Cross, 
is truly present in the Holy Supper, to apply the redemption 
through the very organs by which it was wrought out. The 
sacrifice was made once for all — its application goes on to the 
end of time. The offence of the Master's Cross now rests upon 
His table, and thither the triumph of the Cross shall follow it. 
On the Cross and at the table the saints discern the body of 
the Lord, and in simple faith are determined to know in both 
nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 



620 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

The Tenth Article of the Augsburg Confession declares that 
in The s P e- ^ ie tme ^°&y an d blood of Christ are truly present 

cies of Bread and in the Supper " UNDER THE FORM (uilteT der GeStdlt) 

IntUonTRo- °f b r ead and wine." The word " form " and the 
manismjandRa- German word " Gestalt," which it translates, are 

tionalism. , ,, ., _ _ _ . 

renderings, confessedly, of the Latin term " spe- 
cies." The Apology (164, 54, 57 : illis rebus quae videntur, 
sichtbaren Ding en), giving an equivalent of the word " species " 
or "form," defines it, " those things which are seen, the visi- 
ble things, bread and wine," and the Formula of Concord (674, 
126) speaks of " the elements or visible species or form of the 
consecrated bread and wine." The word " species " belongs to 
the common terms of Theology, and is used by Roman Catho- 
lic, Lutheran, and Zwinglian authors. It is used, for example, 
in the articles of the Marburg Colloquy, which were signed by 
Zwingli. In classic Latin, " species " not only means " a form," 
but " an object presented to the sight ; " not only " figure," 
but the " nature of a thing." It also has the meaning " kind ; " 
hence the phrase " communion in both kinds," " both species." 
So in English we use the words " species " and " kind " as 
convertible. 

The emphasis in the Tenth Article is not on the word species, 
but on bread and wine — not as if it meant the species, not the 
reality ; but, on the contrary, the species or kinds of true bread 
and true wine, not of the accidents of them. In a word, it asserts 
that. the visible objects in the Lord's Supper are real bread and 
real wine. The doctrine of the Confession is that the visible 
and earthly element in the Lord's Supper is true bread and true 
wine {not their accidents), as the invisible and heavenly element 
is the body and blood of Christ (not their symbols, nor the 
memory of them, nor their spiritual virtue). 

The words, first of all, reject the doctrine of Transubstan- 
tiation. 

Secondly : They repudiate the Romish doctrine of sacramen- 
tal concomitance, to wit : that because of their natural associa- 
tion, or concomitance, both the body and blood of Christ are 
given, with each of the species sacramentally , that is, with the 
bread both body and blood are given sacramentally, and with 



THE SPECIES OF BREAD AND WINE. 621 

the wine both blood and body are given sacramentally. The 
Confession implies that the body only is given sacramentally by 
the bread, the blood only is sacramentally given by the wine, 
that from a natural concomitance we cannot argue to a sacra- 
mental one, for the sacramental is wholly supernatural, and its 
character depends on the will of Christ, who has appointed one 
species for the sacramental impartation of His body, the other 
for the sacramental impartation of His blood. If natural con- 
comitance were identical with sacramental impartation, it would 
follow that our Lord had appointed the cup needlessly ; that 
the priest receives in the Mass the body and blood twice, the 
blood by concomitance with the species of bread, and the body 
by concomitance with the species of wine. And if a natural 
concomitance holds good for the sacramental character of the 
bread in communion, it would hold equally good for its sacri- 
ficial character in. the Mass. One kind in the Supper would 
logically justify one kind in the Mass. 

Thirdly : In this the Confession implies that the two species 
or kinds, bread and wine, must both be used in order to having 
a complete communion, and thus the doctrine is set forth, which 
involves a rejection of the Romish abuse of the denial of the 
cup, a denial which applies not only to the laity, but to the 
communicant, whether lay or priestly. The priestly offerer of the 
sacrifice of the Mass drinks of the cup, in making the sacrifice, 
but when the same man approaches the table as a communi- 
cant, he receives only the bread.* 

* As this distinction, though very important, is so little noticed, even by con- 
troversialists, and is so little known, as often to excite surprise among intelligent 
Protestants, the author addressed a note to Prof. George Allen (whose accuracy 
as a scholar can only be equalled by his courtesy as a gentleman), asking of him 
for the facts of the usage in the Roman Catholic Church, of which he is a member, 
which illustrate what we have asserted. From him we obtained the following 
statements : 1. There is not so properly a denial of the cup to the laity, as such, 
as a restriction of it to the celebrant in the Mass. 2. When a priest receives 
the Viaticum, the Communion on his death-bed, he does not receive the cup 
3. On Holy Thursday, in each diocese, the bishop celebrates, and the priests re- 
ceive the Holy Communion only in one kind — they do not receive the cup. 4. In 
the Mass of the Presanctified (on Good Friday), the celebrant himself receives 
only in one kind. 5. The only occasion on which the cardinals receive the cup 
in communing, is when the Pope celebrates on Holy Thursday; and this is done 
on the ground "that in the Feast of the Institution of the Blessed Sacrament, 



622 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Fourthly : In limiting the presence of the body and blood 
first to the communicants (vescentibus), and secondly, to them 
in the Lord's Supper (adsint in Cmna), the Confession implies 
that nothing has a sacramental character apart from its sacra- 
mental use : That the presence of the body and blood of Christ 
is such that only the communicants can actualize it — it is not 
a presence for mice and worms, but for man : and that this 
presence is limited to the Supper: The body and blood of 
Christ cannot be reserved, laid up in monstrances, or carried 
in procession, any more than the Holy Ghost can be laid up in 
a Bible, or carried about in one. 

Fifthly : In this denial of a change of the elements, and in 
the maintenance that the presence is one to be actualized solely 
by the sacramental eating and drinking, is involved the rejection 
of the doctrine that the species in the Supper are to be wor- 
shipped, or that Christ Himself is to be worshipped as in the 
species. We can and should worship Christ at His table, but 
precisely as we worship Him away from it. He did not say, 
Take, worship, but, Take, eat. He did not say, This is My 
Divinity, but this is My body, and the bread which we break 
is not the shrine of His Deity, but the " Communion of His 
body." The presence of Christ, which is distinctive of the 
Sacrament, is sacramental only, that is to say, we reach Christ 
there as we reach Him nowhere else, only as His will makes a 
specific difference. We commune in His broken body and His 
shed blood there, as it is impossible to commune with them 
elsewhere, but we can worship Christ there in no other mode 
than we worship Him everywhere. 

On the first of these points, as conditioning all the rest, we 

they, on that day, represent the chosen disciples." 6. The canons of the Council 
of Trent, Sess. XXI., Can. II., say: "Si quis dixerit, sanctam ecclesiam catho- 
licam non justis causis et rationibus adductam fuisse, ut laicos atque eiiam clericos 
non conficientes sub panis tautummodo specie communicaret, aut in eo errasse : 
anathema sit." 

These facts compel a candid Protestant to admit, upon the one hand, that 
simply as a communicant, as distinct from an offerer of the Sacrifice, simply as 
one who comes to receive and not, also, to impart a benefit, the priest is put by 
the Roman Catholic Church precisely on the same level as the layman; but they 
also do much to intensify the feelings of a Protestant that there is both to priest 
and people an exclusion from the communion in both kinds — the people never 
receive the cup, and the priesthood never receive it as communicants. 



TR AN SUBSTANTIATION REJECTED. 623 

shall dwell more fully than on the others. The word " Tran- 
substantiation " was as unknown to pure antiquity as the 
doctrine couched under it. It first appears in the Twelfth 
Century. The first official use of the term was made in the 
Lateran Council of 1215. The doctrine of Tran- Transubstautia- 
suhstantiation affirms that at the consecrating tion re i ecte(i - 
words the substance of bread and wine ceases to be, and in 
their place, clothed with their accidents or properties, are the 
body, blood, soul, and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ ; no 
bread, but simply Christ's body, looking like bread, tasting 
like bread, feeling like bread, nourishing the body like 
bread, corrupted like bread, eaten by mice like bread, con- 
joined with poison killing the body like poisoned bread, bear- 
ing on it the baker's mark like bread ; but no bread, only body ; 
that there is no wine, but Christ's blood, smelling like wine, 
red if the wine have been red, white if the wine have been 
white, intoxicating like wine, spilling like wine, leaving perma- 
nent stains like wine, poisoning, if mixed with poison, like 
poisoned wine, pronounced by chemical analysis to be wine, de- 
positing the acids and salts like wine, but throughout no wine. 
The doctrine of Transubstantiation is a doctrine not only 
untaught in the Scriptures, but directly in conflict with their 
letter. It is in conflict with the analogy of faith, overthrow- 
ing logically indubitable parts of the faith ; it is in conflict with 
the nature of a sacrament, to which are required two real ele- 
ments, the real earthly as well as the real heavenly ; it is in 
conflict with a fair parallel with Holy Baptism, in which it is 
not pretended by the Church of Rome that there is any tran- 
sabstantiation of the water ; it is a doctrine utterly unknown 
to Christian antiquity, the demonstrable invention of ages of 
corruption, resisted by many of the greatest theologians even 
under the Papacy, and the nurse of superstition, and of the 
grossest idolatry ; it is in conflict with the testimony of the 
senses, subversive of all the laws of moral evidence, and by 
overstretching faith into credulity, tends to produce by reac- 
tion, universal skepticism. An acute nation which swings 
into Transubstantiation, may swing out of it into Atheism. 

This doctrine of the mediaeval Church of Rome was very 
early, and very positively, rejected by Luther, and our other 



624 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

great Reformers. In 1520, Luther, in his book on the Baby- 
lonish Captivity, says : " For more than twelve hundred years 
the Church held the right faith," (in regard to the Lord's 
Supper,) " and never do the holy fathers make mention of that 
portentous word and dream, Transubstantiation." In 1522, in 
his book against Henry VIII., he says, "What they (the 
Romanists) hold in regard to Transubstantiation is the merest 
figment of the godless and blind Thomists ; " and again, " I 
declare it to be impious and blasphemous for any one to assert 
that the bread is transubstantiated." It were easy, if need 
were, to fill pages with testimony of this kind ; but it is 
needless. 

The Romanists, in their Confutation, objected to the Tenth 
Article that it does not teach Transubstantiation, and, what 
they there say, or what was said by their great theological 
representatives at the Diet, is most important as showing how 
the Confession was there understood, and, of course, how it is 
to be understood now. An examination of their official Con- 
futation at once silences the pitiful old libel that the Roman 
Catholics accepted the Tenth Article without reservation. The 
latest repeater of this ignorant, if not malicious, assertion, is 
Rev. Win, Good, by whom it has been the great misfortune 
of the Low Church Party in England to seem to be repre- 
sented. He quotes, at second hand we judge, (from the pages 
of one of the bitterest zealots against the Lutheran Church,) 
four words, drawn from the Papal Confutation, which would 
lead his readers to suppose that the Papists simply assented 
to the Tenth Article as being sound, and hence he draws the 
inference that the Article teaches the Romish view. All this 
is built on an isolation of four words out of more than a hun- 
dred. The Romish Confutation, so far as it bears upon this 
point, literally translated, runs thus : 

" The Tenth Article in words offends nothing, when they 
confess that in the Eucharist, after consecration legitimately 
made, the body and blood of Christ are substantially and truly 
present, provided that (si modo) they believe, that under each 
species, the entire Christ is present, so that by concomitance, the 
blood of Christ is no less under the species of bread than it is 
under the species of wine, and so of the other. Otherwise in 



TRANSUBSTANTIA TION REJECTED. 625 

the Eucharist, the body of Christ would be bloodless, contrary 
to St. Paul, that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no 
more. Rom. vi. 

" One thing is to be added as an Article exceedingly necessary 
(valide necessarium) to this Confession, that they shall believe 
the Church (rather than some who falsely teach otherwise), 
that by the omnipotent Word of God, in the consecration of 
the Eucharist, the substance of the bread is changed into the body 
of Christ:' 

Here it is clear, first, that so far as the Romanists give their 
approval at all to the Tenth Article, it is of the most reserved 
kind. First, they speak of the " words " only, as not offensive 
on the one point that there is a true presence. It is the only 
case in which they qualify their approval by terms which imply 
a suspicion that " the words " may not fairly convey what is 
meant. Hoffmeister, indeed, expresses this insinuation, " unless, 
indeed, they wish to impose upon us by a likeness of words." 

Second, They declare that even these words are not offen- 
sive, solely, if they be so interpreted as to include the idea of 
concomitance, which it is not pretended they express ; they 
carefully note that the Article does not teach Transubstantiation, 
in this acknowledging that the doctrine is not implied, as has 
been pretended, in the word " species." In fact, as the Confes- 
sion does not teach concomitance, but by implication rejects it, 
the Romish Confutation does not really endorse heartily a 
single word of it. 

The discussion of the Tenth Article by John Cochlseus, sheds 
no less light on the understanding of the Article by the Roman- 
ists at the time. This bitter enemy of the Reformation, who 
was one of those who drew up the Confutation, says : " Though 
that Article be brief, there are many things of which we complain 
as wanting in it (multa tamen in eo desideramnr). Luther frivo- 
lously denying Transubstantiation, though in words he dis- 
putes at large against Zwingli and (Ecolampadius, yet in the 
thing itself, he thinks with them, and is in collusion with them 
{cum eis colludit). And Luther's followers have reached such 
a pitch of madness, that they refuse longer to adore the Eucharist, 
because Luther has impiously taught that it is safer not to 
40 



626 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

adore, and has openly denied the doctrine of concomitance. And 
now they have proceeded in the fury of their impiety to such 
a degree as to deny that the hody of Christ remains in the 
consecrated Host, except in the use at the altar {extra altaris 
usum). Hence they falsely and impiously call us idolaters, 
because we retain the body of the Lord in the consecrated 
Host in the Tabernacles (Cibariis) for infirm Communicants, or 
when we bear it (the body) about in monstrances and proces- 
sions." He quotes Melanchthon's words in the Apology, " with 
those things which are seen, the bread and wine," as flagrantly 
contradictory of Transubstantiation (tarpiter contradicit sibi 
ipsi).* 

In this connection it is worth noticing that, widely as Roman- 
ism, with its Transubstantiation, and Rationalism, with its 
Symbol, differ in their results, they run into their error by the 
same fallacious principle of interpretation — each applying it 
with the same arbitrariness, but to different objects. The 
Romanist wishes to do away with the Scripture testimony 
in regard to the bread and wine ; and, although they bear 

*0n the History and Literature of the Papal Confutation, which has great 
value in the interpretation and defence of the Augsburg Confession, see the works 
following ; 

Brill: Auf d. evangel. Augapfel, 1629. 4to. (the German translation of the work 
of Fabricius Leodius mentioned below). — Danz : Augsburg Confess., Jena, 1829. 
12mo. \ 6. — Chytr2Eus. Hist. Aug. Conf, 119. (Confutation, 173, seq.) Ger. 
Edit., 1577, p. 191. — Ccelestinus 1. 192 seq. Confutation III. — Cyprian. 87 
seq. — Feuerlin : Biblioth Symbol. — Fickenscher: Gesch. d. Keichst. z. Augs- 
burg, 1830, III. 324. — Foerstemann; Urkundenbuch, 2 vols. 8vo. Halle, 1835, 
II. 133-176.— Francke: Lib. Symb. Eccl. Luth. Lips. 1847. Proleg. 12mo. 
xxx.-xxxiii. (Confutation, Append. 43-69.) — Gabler : Nst. Theol. Jour., 1801, 
443 seq. — Hase: Lib. Symb. Eccles. Evangel. Lips. 1827, 2 vols. 12mo. Proleg. 
lxxiv.-lxxvi. The Confutation, lxxvi.-cxiv. — Hoffman: Comment, in A. C. 
Tubing., 1727. 4to. 205-213. — Kollner: Symb. d. Luther. Kirche. Hamb. 1837, 
p. 397-416. — MIjller, C. C: Formulae Confutationis A. C. Lat. German. Lips., 
1808, 8vo. — Muller, J. J.: Hist. v. Protest, u. A. C. Jena, 1705, 4to. p. 653.— 
Pfaff: Lib. Symbol. Eccl. Luth. — Planck: Protest. Lehrbeg. III. I. 52 seq. — 
Rotermund : Gesch. d. z. Augsb. ubergeb. Glaubensbek. Hannov. 1829, 8vo. 
109-116. — Salig.: I. 224 seq. 378 seq. — Seckendorf : Hist. Luth. II. 171.— 
Semler: Apparat. in L. S. p. 73. — Spieker, C. G.: Conf. Fidei. Confutatio., etc. 
Berlin, 1830. 8vo. 149-204. — Walchti, J. G.: Introd. in L. S. 416. Miscel- 
lan. Sacra. 205. —Weber: Krit. Gesch. II. Vorred., and p. 439. 



ROMANISM AND RATIONALISM. 627 

» 
their name before the Lord's Supper, during the Lord's Supper, 

and after the Lord's Supper, he insists that there is neither 
bread nor wine there, but only their accidents. While our 
Lord says : " This is my body," the Romanist in effect makes 
it : This seeming bread is no longer bread, but has become, has 
been transubstantiated into, My body. He deserts the letter 
and reaches Transubstantiation. The Rationalist wishes to 
retain the bread and wine, and therefore holds that what the 
Scripture calls bread and wine, is bread and wine ; but he 
wishes to do away with the Scripture testimony in Romanism and 
regard to the body and blood ; and although the T ^°^™ le 
Scripture says, that of that which the Saviour tells here the same. 
them to Take, eat, He declares most explicitly, This is My 
body ; and of that which He tells them to drink, He says, 
This is My blood — though it says that the bread is the com- 
munion of His body and the cup the communion of His blood 
— though it declares that the guilt of the heedless communi- 
cant is that he does not " discern the Lord's body," and that 
he that eateth and drinketh unworthily is guilty of the body 
and blood of Christ ; in the face of all this he insists that 
there is in the Lord's Supper only the shadow, image, or sign 
of the body and blood of Christ, not the true body and true 
blood. With what face can a Rationalist meet a Romanist, 
or a Romanist meet a Rationalist? No wonder that the 
Rationalist, after all, is less violent against Romanism than 
against the pure doctrine of our Church. There is the secret 
affinity of error between them; and Romanism does not so 
hate Rationalism, Rationalism does not so hate Romanism, as 
both hate unswerving fidelity to the Word of God. That the 
Romish and rationalizing modes of interpretation are nearer 
to each other than either is to the Lutheran, is admitted by 
both Rationalists and Romanists. The rationalizing interpre- 
ters make it one of the common -places of objection to the 
Lutheran view that it has less in a literal interpretation of the 
Scripture to sustain it than the Romish view has : that is, the 
Romish view is less decisively opposed than the Lutheran is 
to rationalistic modes of literal interpretation. 
On the Romish side, Bellarmine and others take the ground 



628 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

that right principles of interpretation lead either to Romanistic 
or Calvinistic views of the Supper. As both these have the 
common ground that the proposition of the Supper is : " This 
bread is Christ's body," and as both argue that real bread can- 
not be real body, the one escapes the difficulty by maintaining 
that there is no real bread in the Supper, the other that there 
is no real body there ; or, in other words, the Romanist, 
Zwinglian, and Calvinist agree in an exegetical principle, and 
simply vary in the application of it. 

A single citation from two great authorities, the first Roman 
Catholic, the second Calvinistic, will demonstrate this. Bel- 
larmine, in his Discussion of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, 
ch. xix., says, "These words: 'This is My body,' necessarily 
lead to the inference either that there is a true mutation of the 
bread, as the Catholics will have it, or a metaphorical mutation, 
as the Calvinists will have it ; but in no way admit of the 
Lutheran view." 

Ursinus, in his Explanation of the Catechism, II. , Q. 78 : 
" As it is not true that the Papists retain the verbally literal, 
so it is much less true (multo minus verum) that those (Lutherans) 
retain the letter and true sense of the words." " The letter is : 
c This, that is, this bread, is My body ; ' the meaning is, ' That 
visible, broken, and distributed bread is My true and essential 
body.' But as this cannot be by essential conversion, but 
mystically or by sacramental metonomy, because the words, 
according to the verbally literal, have a sense repugnant to 
the verity of the Christian faith, therefore we say, that in the 
words of Christ a fitting (conveniens) meaning is to be taught." 
Do. p. 541. This, then, is the genesis of the two views : Body 
cannot be bread, but as there is body there is no bread : bread 
cannot be body, but as there is bread there is no body. 

With such a principle, only a third possibility remains : it is 
to apply it rigidly and consistently to every part of the Insti- 
tution, to take away the bread with the Romanist, and the 
body with the Rationalist, and then we have the Lord's Sup- 
per of the Quaker and other mystics, with. neither supernatural 
reality nor outward element — all idea, all spirit. The extrava- 
gance of the Romish materializing of the presence of Christ's 



CONCESSIONS OF UN-LUTHERAN WRITERS. 629 

body, and of the rationalistic exaggeration, which leaves only 
natural matter, run into the nihilism of the mystic. You can- 
not annihilate either element in the Lord's Supper without 
annihilating both. 

In the doctrine of Transubstantiation, nevertheless, as in 
almost all of her corruptions, the Church of Rome has not so 
much absolutely removed the foundation, as hidden it by the 
wood, hay, and stubble of humau device. Truth can some- 
times be reached by running the corruptions of it back to the 
trunk on which they were grafted. Such an error as that of 
Transubstantiation could never have been grafted on an origi- 
nal faith like that of Zwingli in regard to the Lord's Supper. 
The tendency of the Zwinglian view, if it be corrupted, is to 
laxer, not to higher, views of the sacramental mystery. Such 
an error as the doctrine of the immaculate conception of the 
Virgin Mary never could have been grafted on a faith origi- 
nally Socinian. It is a corruption which presupposes as a truth, 
to be corrupted in its inference, the divinity and sinlessness of 
our Lord Jesus Christ; and just as the comparatively modern 
corruption of the worship of the Virgin is a proof that faith in 
the Godhead of Jesus Christ was part of the primitive faith, so 
does the comparatively modern corruption of Transubstantia- 
tion prove that faith in the objective supernatural presence of 
the body and blood of our Lord was part of the primitive faith. 
A rotten apple always presupposes a sound apple. However 
corrupt a fig may be, we know that it grew on a fig-tree, and 
not on a thistle. 

Our fourth proposition in the analytic exhibition of the doc- 
trine of the Augsburg Confession is : 

That the true body and blood of Christ, truly iv. TheSacra- 
present in the Lord's Supper, under the species of mental Commu - 

■*■ m rr 1 * mon of the Body 

bread and wine, are communicated.* ami Biood of 

We have virtually proved this proposition in Q ^\~ A ^in- 
proving the three which preceded it. ^Teverthe- isticviews-con- 

i ii na j? o • x 'i j • cessions of un- 

less, m the affluence ot bcripture evidence sustain- Lutheran writ- 
ing the doctrine of our Church, we can well afford 



er.-i. 



* German, ausgetheilt : Lat., distribuantur. In the Apology; Lat., exhibean- 
tur; German, dargereicht. 



630 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

to give this thesis a distinct vindication. We affirm, then, 
that this fourth proposition is explicitly taught in 1 Cor. x. 16 : 
" The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion 
[xojvwv/a] of the blood of Christ ? The bread which we break, 
is it not the communion [xci-Wa] of the body of Christ?" 
This passage, in its express terms and in its connection, is 
what Luther calls it — a thunderbolt upon the heads of error- 
ists in regard to the Lord's Supper. The figment of Transub- 
stantiation is overthrown by it, for it expressly mentions bread, 
and that which communicates cannot be identical with that 
which is communicated by it. St. Paul expressly mentions 
the two elements ; the bread, which is the earthly ; the body 
of our Lord, w T hich is the heavenly ; the sacramental union, 
and the impartation of the heavenly in, with, and under the 
earthly. The passage equally overthrows all the Rationalistic 
corruptions of the doctrine. Zwingli says: The bread is the 
sign of the body ; Paul says : The bread is the communion of 
the body ; Zwingli says : The wine is the sign of the blood ; 
Paul says : The cup is the communion of the blood. On 
Zwingli's theory, any and all bread is, as such, the sign of 
Christ's body ; on Paul's theory, it is the bread which ice break, 
that is, the sacramental bread only, which is the communion 
of Christ's body ; on Zwingli's theory, any wine and all wine 
is, as such, the sign of Christ's blood ; on Paul's theory, only 
the cup of blessing, which ice bless, in the Supper, is the com- 
munion of Christ's blood; on Zwingli's theory, the. relation of 
the bread and body is that of symbol and of reality ; on Paul's 
theory, it is the relation of communicating medium and of the 
thing communicated ; on Zwingli's theory, we receive the cup 
to be reminded of the blood ; on Paul's theory, we receive the 
cup to receive the blood. On Zwingli's theory, the argument 
of the Apostle is sophistical and pointless in the last degree, 
for as all bread is equally an emblem of Christ's body as food 
for the soul, and all wine equally an emblem of Christ's blood 
as the refreshing of the soul, any and every eating of bread, 
and any and eve^ drinking of wine, would be the communion 
of His body and blood ; therefore, to eat bread and to drink 
wine at the table of Demons, would be, on Zwingli's theory 



CONCESSIONS OF UN-LUTHERAN WRITERS. 631 

of symbol, to have communion with Christ's body and blood ; 
for bread is a symbol of nourishment, wine a symbol of refresh- 
ing, without reference to the time or place of receiving them ; 
their whole character as symbols depends on what bread is, as 
bread — on what wine is, as wine ; and the Corinthian could 
make the table of Demons a Lord's Supper by the simple men- 
tal act of thinking of the bread and wine as symbols of Christ's 
body and blood. A vine, as a symbol of Christ, is equally a 
symbol, whether it grows on the land of devil-worshippers or 
of Christians ; bread, as a symbol of Christ's body, is equally a 
symbol, whether baked by Atheist, Jew, or Pagan ; whether 
eaten at the table of Demons or at the table of the Lord. 
The logic of Zwingli's position is, then, exactly the opposite of 
that of the Apostle, and would make his conclusion in the last 
degree absurd. 

Equally do the words overthrow the Calvinistic theory. 
Calvin's theory is, that the Holy Spirit communicates the body 
of Christ ; Paul's is, that the bread communicates it; he men- 
tions but two elements, bread and body. Calvin says, the Holy 
Spirit communicates the blood of Christ ; Paul says, that the 
cup communicates it, two elements only again, cup and blood, 
not three : cup, Holy Spirit, and blood. Calvin makes faith 
the communicating medium ; Paul says, the bread we break, 
the cup we bless, is the communicating medium. Calvin makes 
the communion of the body and blood of Christ, one which is 
confined to worthy recipients, true believers, while to all others 
there is but the communication of bread and wine ; Paul is 
speaking of what the communion also is to some who." eat 
and drink unworthily," " not discerning the Lord's body," 
" eating and drinking damnation to themselves," " guilty of 
the body and blood of the Lord," and yet he affirms that to 
them the bread communicates the body, the cup, the blood of 
Christ. Calvin's communion is one which can take place any- 
where and always, inasmuch as the Hoty Spirit is always pres- 
ent, and faith can always be exercised ; Paul's is expressly 
limited to that with which the bread and cup are connected. 
Calvin's is a communion of the virtue and efficacy of the body 
and blood of Christ ; Paul's is a communion of the body and 



632 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

blood themselves. Calvin's is the communion of an absent 
body and blood ; Paul's the communion of a present body and 
blood, so present that bread, broken and given, imparts the 
one, and the cup, blessed and taken, imparts the other. Cal- 
vin talks of a faith by which we spiritually eat an absent 
body, Paul of elements by which we sacrarnentally eat a pres- 
ent body. 

As by Zwingli's theory, so by Calvin's also, the argument of 
the Apostle here is emptied of all force. For the argument 
of the Apostle is addressed to those who eat and drink unwor- 
thily, that is to those who had not faith. The very necessity 
of the argument arises from the presupposition of a want of 
true faith in the Lord, on the part of those to whom it was 
addressed. Bat on the Calvinistic theory the communion of 
the body and blood of Christ, and participation in them, are 
confined to those who have faith. These Corinthians, there- 
fore, had St. Paul taught them a theory like that of Calvin, 
might have replied: a Oh, no I as we are without true faith, 
and are receiving unworthily, we receive nothing but bread 
and wine, but as bread and wine were not the sacrifices which 
Christ offered to God, we do not come into fellowship with 
God's altar by partaking of them — therefore we are not guilty 
of what you charge on us, to wit, the inconsistency of eating 
and drinking at the same time, of the sacrifices offered on 
God's altar, and of the sacrifices offered on the altar of De- 
mons." The Calvinistic theory makes the argument of the 
Apostle an absurdity. 

Two parallels in the connection help to bring out very viv- 
idly the Apostle's idea. One is the parallel with Israel : v. 18. 
;t Behold Israel after the flesh : are not they which eat of the 
sacrifices partakers of the altar? " The point seems to be most 
clearly this : that the communion of the body of Christ in the 
Supper is as real as the eating of the animal sacrifices in the 
Jewish Church. Christ's body is the true sacrifice which takes 
once for all the place of the Jewish sacrifices, and the sacra- 
mental communion, in which that body is the sustenance, in 
ever-renewing application of the one only sacrifice, takes the 
place of the Jewish eating of the sacrifice. The other parallel 



CONCESSIONS OF UN-LUTHERAN WRITERS. 633 

is with the eating the sacrifices and drinking of the cup offered 
to idols, v. 21. The communion of the body and blood of 
Christ is represented as no less real in its nature and positive 
in its results than the other communication of the sacrificial 
flesh and cup. 

The parallel may be offered thus to the eye, as regards the 
Jews and the Christians. 

Israel after the flesh, or Israel after the spirit, or 

the Jews, Christians, 

have the typical sacrifice have the real sacrifice 

of the body of the body 

and blood and blood 

of animals, of Christ, 

on the typical altar, on the true altar, 

and eat and eat 

of the typical sacrifice of the true sacrifice 

of animal body and blood of Christ's body and blood 

at the Jewish Festival, at the Christian festival, 

the sacrificial supper, the Lord's Supper, 

and thus partake and thus partake 

of the typical altar. of the true altar. 

Here the parallel is between type and truth — in the parallel 
between Pagans and Christians it is between falsehood and 
truth. 

In a word, the whole argument involves a parallel between 
three things : 

I. The Sacrificial meal of the Jews. 
II. The Sacrificial meal of the Pagans. 

III. The Sacrificial meal of the Christians, or Lord's Supper. 

The common idea that underlies the triple parallel is, that in 
each of these meals there is a true communion, communication, 
or impartation of the thing sacrificed, whereby the receiver is 
brought into the fellowship of the Altar, on which it was sac- 
rificed, and thus into fellowship with the being to whom it was 
sacrificed — the Pagan with the Demons, the Jew with God as 
hidden in type, the Christian with God unveiled, and incarnate 
in Christ. 



634 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

The parallel in the thought in Heb. xiii. 10-12 is also well 
worthy of notice : " We have an altar, whereof they have no 
right to eat, which serve the tabernacle. For the bodies of 
those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the 
High Priest for sin, are burnt without the camp. Wherefore, 
Jesus, also, that He might sanctify the people with His own 
blood, suffered without the gate." Here is altar over against 
altar, body over against body, blood over against blood, sacri- 
fice over against sacrifice, eating over against eatiug. We 
have the true altar over against the typifying altar, the true 
body, blood, and sacrifice of Christ over against the typifying 
body, blood, and sacrifice of beasts, the true sacramental and 
communicating eating over against the typifying eating, which 
foreshadowed, but could not consummate a communion. 

If language can express a thought unmistakably, the words 
of Paul (1 Cor. x.) imply that, in the Lord's Supper, there is 
a supernatural reality, a relation between the bread and the 
body of Christ, which makes the one the medium of the recep- 
tion of the other ; that our atoning sacrifice, after a different 
manner, but a manner not less real than that of the sacrifice 
of Jew and Pagan, is communicated to us in the Holy Supper, 
as their sacrifices were given in their feasts. The Lord's Sup- 
per, indeed, may be regarded as a summing up of the whole 
fundamental idea of Old Testament sacrifice, a covenant con- 
summated by sacrifice, and entered into by the covenanting 
parties, receiving, each after the mode appropriate to him, that 
which is sacrificed ; the Almighty Father accepting His Son, 
as the Victim offered for the sins of the whole world, and the 
world accepting in the Holy Supper the precious body and 
blood which apply in perpetual renewal, through all genera- 
tions, the merits of the oblation made, once for all, upon the 
Cross. 

The interpretation of these passages implied by our Church 
in her Confession is sustained by the universal usage of the 
Church Catholic, by the judgment of the greatest of the 
fathers, Greek and Latin, by the opinion of the most eminent 
dogmaticians and expositors, ancient and modern, and even by 
the concessions of interpreters who reject the Lutheran faith. 



CONCUSSIONS OF UN-LUTHERAN WRITERS. 635 

1. The whole Church from the earliest period has called, and 
now calls, the Lord's Supper the Communion. That Supper 
alone has this name. But what solution of the sole applica- 
tion of this name can be given except that in it the body and 
blood of Christ are communicated and received as they are no- 
where else. The universal Christian consciousness and lan- 
guage attest the supernatural reality of the presence of the 
body and blood of Christ. 

2. The drift of patristic interpretation may be gathered from 
the extracts which follow : 

Ignatius (Ordained by the Apostle Peter, ab. A. D. 43, d. 
107): " The Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ. 
There is one cup for the uniting (£Wiv) of His blood." 

Justin Martyr (d. 165) : " The food over which the Eu- 
charistic prayer has been made is the flesh and blood of the 
incarnate Jesus. 7 ' 

Iren^ius (d. 202) : " When the mingled cup and the broken 
bread receive the words of God, it becomes the Eucharist of 
the body and blood of Christ." 

Ambrose (d. 307) : " We receiving of one bread and of one 
cup, are receivers and partakers of the body of the Lord." 

Chrysostom (d. 407) : " Very persuasively and fearfully He 
speaks : For what He says is this, That very thing which is 
in this cup is that which flowed from His side, and of that we 
are partakers. Not only hath He poured it out, but He hath 
imparted of it to us all. What is more fearful than this? 
Yet, what more kindly affectioned? The bread which we 
break, is it not the communion (xoivwvia) of the body of Christ ? 
Why does He not say Participation (pero^y) ? Because He 
wished to signify something more (than participation), and to 
indicate the greatness of the joining together." Theophylact* 
and John, of Damascus, adopt and repeat these words of 
Chrysostom. 

Jerome (d. 420) : " Is it not the Communion of the blood of 

* Theophylact (1078) : " Non dixit participatio, sed communicatio ut aliquid 
excellentius indicet puta summam unionem. Quid autem dicit hujusinodi est, 
hoc quod in calice eat, illud est quod effluxit de latere Christi, et ex eo accipientes 
communicamus, id est unimur Christo." 



636 , CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Christ ? As the Saviour Himself saith : He who eateth My 
flesh and drinketh My blood, abideth in Me, and I in him." 

Theodoret (d. 456) : " Enjoying the sacred mysteries, are we 
not partakers with Him, the Master? " 

John of Damascus (d. 750) : " As the body is united with 
the Logos, so also we are united with Him by this bread." 
" The Lord's Supper is called, and is, in very deed, a commu- 
nion (xojvwv/a), because through it we commune (xoivwvslv) with 
Christ and become partakers of His flesh." Orthod. Fidei, lib. 
IV. xiv. 

3. The Reformers of the Non-Lutheran tendency make im- 
portant concessions. 

Calvin : "The thing itself is also present, nor does the soul 
less receive (percipiat) the communion of the blood, than we 
drink the wine with the mouth." " The wine is no longer a 
common drink, but dedicated to the spiritual nourishment of 
the soul, inasmuch as it is a token (tessera) of the blood of 
Christ." 

Peter Martyr : " Ye are of the body of Christ, His mem- 
bers, participants (participes) of His body and blood." " Chris- 
tians have association and conjunction with one another, which 
hath its seat in this (in eo sita est), that they are participants 
of the body and blood of Christ." 

But no witness to the cogency of the passage is perhaps so 
striking as that of Zwinoli, who, in the effort to explain away 
a text so fatal to his theory, falls upon this violent and extra- 
ordinary interpretation : " What, I ask, is the cup of blessing 
which we bless, Except our own selves (quam nos ipsi) ? He 

GIVES THE NAME OF THE BLOOD OF CHRIST TO THOSE WHO TRUST IN 

His blood. In this passage the communion of the blood of 
Christ are those who exult that they have obtained liberty in 
Christ's blood. All we who are participants of one bread and 

One CUp, ARE THE BLOOD OF CHRIST AND THE BODY OF CHRIST 

We have treated this point somewhat more verbosely, but we 
have done it because this passage, either not understood, or 
badly interpreted, even by many learned men, has given to 
the simple, occasion of believing that in the bread the body of 
Christ is eaten, and in the wine His blood is drunk." Who 



CONCESSIONS OF UN-LUTHERAN WRITERS. 637 

does not feel that Zwingli would have weakened his cause less 
by saying honestly, " I cannot harmonize this text with my 
view," than he has by an interpretation so forced as to look 
like evidence of purpose to make, in any way, God's words 
square with a certain assumption ? 

4. A few distinguished names among English and American 
writers may be quoted. On these words, Pool, the great mas- 
ter among the old Puritan commentators, says : " The cup 
which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ ? 
that is, it is an action whereby and wherein Christ communi- 
cates Himself and His grace to us." " The bread is the com- 
munion of the body of Christ ; an action wherein Christians 
have a fellowship and communion with Christ." It will be 
noticed that, in the face of the text, Pool substitutes " Christ " 
for " body of Christ," and again for u blood of Christ." Sub- 
stitute the very term of the sacred Word for his substitute, 
and Pool is forced to say of the Lord's Supper : " It is an 
action whereby and wherein Christ communicates His blood 
to us," "an action whereby Christians have a fellowship and 
communion with the body of Christ," and this is, as far as it 
goes, the very doctrine of our Church. 

Bishop Wilson's paraphrase is : " The bread which we break, 
after consecration, is it not that by which we have communion 
with Christ, our Head? " 

Hussey explains the " communion " " by spiritually partak- 
ing of the blood and body of Christ in the Eucharist." 

The older translators in English bring out the true sense 
very clearly : " Is not the cup of blessing, which we bless, par- 
taking of the blood of Christ ? " " Is not the bread, which we 
break, partaking of the body of Christ ? " Such is the render- 
ing of the earliest and latest Tyndale, of Coverdale, of Crau- 
mer, and of the Bishops. The first English translation, and 
for more than half a century the only one, which used the 
word "communion" was the Genevan, which was made at 
Geneva by English religious fugitives who were strong Calvin- 
ists, and who here followed Beza, evidently for doctrinal reasons, 
as the marginal note shows. From the Genevan (1557) it went 
into the Authorized Version (1611), which obscures the Apos- 



638 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

tie's reasoning by rendering koinonia, in the sixteenth verse, 
communion, and koinonos, in the eighteenth verse, " par- 
takers " and " fellowship." 

Hammond translates the word xoivwvia " communication," and 
paraphrases it : " The Christian feast of bread and wine in 
the Lord's Supper is . . the making us partakers of the body 
and blood of Christ," and refers to his note on Acts ii. 42, in 
which he says : " The word koinonia is to be rendered, not 
communion, but communication, by that, meaning distribution 
. . or participation, by which any are made partakers of some 
gift. In this notion is the word generally used in Scripture 
for . . some kind of distributing or dispensing to others. . . 
So in 1 Cor. x. 16, the participating of the body and blood of 
Christ." 

Bishop Hall (d. 1656) : " That sacred cup . . is it not that 
wherein we have a joint communion with Christ, in par- 
taking of His blood? The bread . . is it not that wherein we 
. . have communion with Christ, in a joint receiving of His 
body?" 

Archbishop Sharp : " St. Paul here plainly teaches us that 
these sacred signs make those who use them to have commu- 
nion with Christ crucified." 

The Westminster Assembly's Annotations represent the 
communion as " a sign or pledge of the spiritual communion 
which we have together, who by faith participate in the body 
and blood of Christ." 

Matthew Henry says : " He lays down his argument from 
the Lord's Supper, a feast on the sacrificed body and blood of our 
Lord." 

Macknight translates : " Is it (the cup of blessing) not the 
joint participation of the blood of Christ? Is it (the loaf 
which we break) not the joint participation of the body of 
Christ?" 

Adam Clarke gives this as the force of the words : " We 
who partake of this sacred cup, in commemoration of the death 
of Christ, are made partakers of His body and blood, and thus 
have fellowship with Him." 

Conybeare and Howson thus paraphrase the words : " When 



CONCUSSIONS OF UN-LUTHERAN WRITERS. 639 

we drink the cup of blessing which we bless, are we not all 
partakers in the blood of Christ ? When we break the bread, 
are we not all partakers in the body of Christ? " and say in 
the note : " Literally, the cup of blessing which we bless, is it 
not a common participation in the blood of Christ ? The bread 
which we break, is it not a common participation in the body 
of Christ ? " 

Parkhurst, in his Greek Lexicon, gives as the proper defi- 
nition of koinouia in this passage, " a partaking, participa- 
tion." 

Dr. Robinson defines the word, " a partaking, sharing," and 
cites 1 Cor. x. 16 as an illustration of the meaning " participa- 
tion." 

Aleord : " Koinonia, the participation (i. e. that whereby 
the act of participation takes place) of the blood of Christ. 
The strong literal sense must here be held fast, as constituting 

the very kernel of the Apostle's argument If we are to 

render this e estin,' represents or symbolizes, the argument is 

MADE VOID." 

Dr. John W. Nevin, in his Mystical Presence, speaking of 
the language in this place, says : " This much it does most cer- 
tainly imply, that the communion is something more than fig- 
urative or moral. It is the communion of Christ's body and 
blood, a real participation in His true human life, as the one 
only and all-sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world." 

Gill, the great Baptist Rabbinist, on the words: "The 
bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of 
Christ ? " says : " It is ; for not only believers by this act have 
communion with His mystical body, the Church, but with His 
natural body, which was broken for them ; they, in a spiritual 
sense, and by faith, eat His flesh, as well as drink His blood, 
and partake of Him." 

Dr. .Schmucker, in his Catechism says, that " worthy com- 
municants, in this ordinance, by faith spiritually feed on the 
body and blood of the Redeemer, thus holding communion or 
fellowship with Him," and cites 1 Cor. x. 16 to prove it. 

Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, says : "It is here assumed that 
partaking of the Lord's Supper brings us into communion with 



640 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Christ. . . . The Apostle's argument is founded on the assump- 
tion that a participation of the cup is a participation of the 
blood of Christ ; and that a participation of the bread is a par- 
ticipation of the body of Christ. Is it not the communion of 
the blood of Christ ; that is, is it not the means of participating 
in the blood of Christ ? He who partakes of the cup partakes 
of Christ's blood. . . . By partaking of the bread, Ave partake 
of the body of Christ." 

5. "We will cite as representative of German Interpreta- 
tion four names : the first representing the Ancient Lutheran 
Orthodoxy ; the second the intermediate Lutheran Theology 
of the 18th Century ; the third the Unionistic Theology of our 
own era ; and the fourth, a witness to the irresistible character 
of the text, which compels a rationalistic commentator to ac- 
knowledge its true force. 

Calovius : " The earthly thing, to wit, the bread, is taken 
in an earthly manner : the heavenly thing, to wit, the body of 
Christ, is taken and eaten in a manner fitting it, that is, a 
heavenly or mystical manner. As that union is sacramental 
and is in mystery, and hence called mystical, the manner of 
eating which depends upon it, is as regards the body of Christ 
'•plainly mystical, sacramental, and incomprehensible to human 
reason,' as Hunnius correctly observes." 

S. J. Baumgarten : " The communion of the cup with the 
blood of Christ, can here be taken in a twofold mode: 1: The 
cup stands in communion with the blood of Christ — is a 
means of offering and imparting it. 2. The cup is a means 
of uniting the participants with the blood of Christ — a means 
whereby they are made participants of it. The second presup- 
poses the first." 

Olshausen : " "Were there in the Supper no communion with 
Christ but in spirit, the "words would be ' Communion of 
Christ,' not ' communion of the body,' ' communion of the 
blood of Christ.' As of course the language refers to Christ 
in His state of exaltation, it is of His glorified flesh and blood 
it speaks : these come, in the Supper, into attingence with 
the participant, and thus mediate the communion." 

Rueckert is the last name we shall cite, and, as a witness on 



THE COMMUNION OF THE VNWOETHY. 641 

the point here involved, no name could carry more force with 
it. Eueckert is one of the greatest scholars of the age, a his- 
torico-critical rationalist, at the furthest extreme from the 
Lutheran position, making it his peculiar boast that, rising 
above all Confessions and parties, he accepts the results of 
scientific exegesis. He professes to make it his law, " that 
you are to lend nothing that is yours to your author, and omit 
nothing that is his — you are not to ask what he ought to say, 
nor be afraid of what he does say." Eueckert, in his work on 
the Lord's Supper,* after a very thorough investigation of the 
sense of 1 Cor. x., says: "Paul . . sees in the Supper Christ's 
body and blood . . as supersensuous and heavenly, which He 
gives as food and drink at His table to believers, and indeed 
without any exception, and without distinction between worthy 
and unworthy participants." He then shows that there is no 
possibility of evading the acceptance of the doctrine except by 
rejecting the authority of Paul, and by appealing to " the de- 
cision of rational thinking." Rationalism itself, in the person 
of one of its greatest representatives, being judge, it has no 
foothold in the text. Eueckert, moreover, confesses that the 
earliest faith of the Church agrees with this result of the latest 
scientific exegesis : " That in the Supper the body and blood 
of Christ are given and received, vms the universal faith, from 
the beginning. . . . This faith abode in the aftertime ; the 
Christian people (Gemeinde) never had any other, and in the 
Ancient Church it had not a solitary person to oppose it ; the 
extremest heretics themselves never did it." 

The Fifth Proposition in the analytical view of the doctrine 
of the Augsburg Confession is : That the true v The Com 
body and blood of Christ, truly present and truly munion of the 
communicated under the species of bread and 
wine, are received by all communicants. $ 

" He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and 
drinketh damnation (or, judgment) to himself, not discern- 

* 1856. Pages 241, 297. 

f See Seb. Schmidt: De princip. s. fundam. praes. Corpor. et. Sanguin. Christi 
Argentor, 1699. Chap. xi. 

X German: da . . genommen wird. Latin: vescentibus. Apology: his qui 
sacramentum accipiunt. 
41 



642 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ing ((Wxpivwv) the Lord's body," (because he hath not distin- 
guished the body. . . Syr. Ether. Eateth and drinketh con- 
demnation on himself, by not discerning. . . Syr. Murdock) : 
"Whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the 
Lord unworthily, shall be guilty (^ox^) of the body and blood 
of the Lord," (is guilty of the blood of the Lord and of His 
body). Syr. Etheridge. 1 Cor. xi. 27-29. 

From the four propositions already established it is a neces- 
sary inference, and in the cogent texts just quoted it is ex- 
pressly taught, that, while none but those who receive in faith 
receive savingly, all who come to the Supper receive sacrament- 
ally, the body and blood of Christ. As those to whom the 
gospel is a savor of death unto death, receive in common with 
those to whom it is a savor of life unto life, one and the same 
thing outwardly, to wit : the gospel ; so do those who abuse, 
to their own condemnation, the Lord's Supper, and those who 
rightly use it to their soul's welfare, receive one and the same 
thing sacramentalJy. It is the very essence of the sin of the 
rejection of the gospel, that, receiving it outwardly, with the 
attendant energy of the Holy Spirit in, with, and under it, the 
rejector has not received it inwardly, and thus makes it not 
merely practically void, but pernicious to his soul. So is it 
the very essence of the sin of unworthy treatment of the Lord's 
Supper, that, receiving it in its sacred and divine element, as 
well as in its outward one, the communicant makes no inward 
appropriation of the benefit there offered, but turns, by his 
unbelief, the food of his soul to its poison. In the passages 
quoted immediately after the Thesis, men, whose unworthiness 
is such that their condemnation is sealed by their eating, are 
represented as guilty of the body and blood of Christ ; that is, 
the object of their abuse is specifically declared to be, not bread 
and wine, either in themselves or as symbols, but the body and 
blood of Christ. That which they are treating with contumely 
is said to be the body of the Lord, and their crime is that 
they do not discern it: " not discerning the body of the Lord." 
But unbelief would be its own safeguard, if it were the com- 
municant's faith, and not the will and institution of Christ, 
which is the ground of the presence. The unbeliever could 



THE COMMUNION OF THE UNWORTHY. 643 

say : " As I have no faith, there is no body of Christ to dis- 
cern ; there is no body and blood of which I can be guilty." 
Of such men, moreover, the Apostle, in the previous chapter, 
declared that the broken bread and the cup of blessing are to 
them also the communion of the body and blood of Christ. 

Let any man weigh solemnly the import of the thought : 
He that eateth unworthily of this bread is guilty of the body 
of the Lord; he that drinketh unworthily of this cup is guilty 
of the blood of the Lord ; and then let him ask himself, before 
the Searcher of hearts, whether he dare resolve the Lord's Sup- 
per into a mere eating of a symbol of Christ's body, the drink- 
ing of a symbol of Christ's blood ? Let it be remembered that 
in the case of the Corinthians, deeply as they had sinned, there 
was no designed dishonor of the sacramental elements, still less 
of Christ, whom they set forth ; there was no hatred to Christ, 
no positive infidelity, and yet an unworthy drinking of the 
sacramental cup made them "guilty of the blood of Christ." 
The Apostle expressly tells us, too, whereon the fearfulness of 
their guilt and the terribleness of their penalty turned : " They 
ate and drank damnation to themselves, not discerning (making 
no difference of) the Lord's body." But on all the rationalistic 
interpretations there is no body of the Lord there to discern. 

To " discern " (diakrinein), elsewhere translated to " make 
or put differences between," involves a correct mental and 
moral judgment ; it means to distinguish between two things 
which there is a liability of confounding, to mark the distinc- 
tion between one thing and another. "Can I discern between 
good and evil ? " " That I may discern between good and bad." 
" Cause them to discern between clean and unclean," that is, 
to mark and make the distinction, in mind, feeling, and act. 
To " discern the body of the Lord," is, therefore, to discrimi- 
nate between it and something which is, or might be, con- 
founded with it, to mark its difference from some other thing, 
to believe, feel, and act in the conviction that it is not that 
other thing, but is the body of the Lord. The point is, That 
which you receive in the Lord's Supper is not mere bread and 
wine, as your conduct would imply that it is, but is also the 
body and blood of Christ ; therefore, your guilt (taking its 



644 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

root in a failure to discern this body and blood) is not that of 
the abuse of bread and wine, but of the indignity offered to 
His body and blood which they communicate ; therefore your 
punishment is not simply that of men guilty of gluttony and 
drunkenness, but that of men guilty of a wrong done to the 
body and blood of Christ ; therefore sickness and death have 
been sent to warn you of your awful crime, and if these warn- 
ings be not heeded, your final doom will be to perish with the 
world (v. 32). 

The sacramental communion was ordained of Christ as the 
means of the spiritual communion. In its divine essence, that 
is, in its sacramental character, the Lord's Supper is unchange- 
able, but its effects and blessings are conditioned upon the faith 
of the recipient. The same sunlight falls upon the eye of the 
blind and of the seeing alike ; both eyes alike receive it, but 
the eye of the seeing alone "perceives it ; it is communicated to 
both ; it is " discerned " by but the one. But the analogy fails 
at an important point : In spirituals the lack of the perception 
with the reception is voluntary, and, therefore, while the blind 
eye suffers privation only, the blind soul comes' under condem- 
nation. It is the blind man's misfortune that he does not see, 
it is the unbelieving man's guilt that he does not discern. The 
diseased and the sound eat of the same natural bread ; but to 
one it brings strength, to another it is without effect, and to 
yet another it brings nausea and agony. The difference of 
result is owing to the difference of condition in the recipient. 
The Holy Spirit breathes forever on and in the word, and is, 
with it, received by all who hear the word, quickening the 
yielding heart, and hardening the heart which resists Him. 

Jesus said to every one of the disciples present, probably to 
Judas, who betrayed, certainly to Peter, who soon after denied 
Him : u Take, eat, this is My body given for you ; " and the 
ministers of Christ for eighteen centuries have said to every 
communicant, believing or unbelieving, " Take, eat, this is the 
body of Christ given for you," and what Christ said, and they 
say, is unchangingly true. So far there is no distinction made 
by the character of the recipient, for as much as this depended 
upon Christ's will, and is therefore unchanging. " The gifts 



THE COMMUNION OF THE UNWORTHY. 645 

of God are without repentance," that is, there is no vacilla- 
tion, repentance, or fluctuation of mind in God. But when to 
these absolute words is added: " Do this in remembrance of 
me," there comes in something dependent upon man's will, and 
which may, therefore, fluctuate. As it is true, even of the 
man that perishes, that Christ's body was broken and His 
blood shed for him, " for our Lord Jesus Christ, by the grace 
of God, tasted death for every man ; " as it is true that every 
man in the Resurrection shall be called forth from the grave, 
for " as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive," 
though some shall rise to glory, and others to shame ; so is it 
true that every man, however unworthy, sacramental ly par- 
takes of the body and blood of Christ in the Supper, though it 
be to his own condemnation. As the unbelieving, under the 
Old Dispensation, were, equally with the believing, outwardly 
sprinkled with the blood of the covenant, though they received 
not, for lack of faith, its blessings ; as those who are unbeliev- 
ing and baptized receive the baptism itself in its sacramental 
entireness, though they do not appropriate its blessings, so do the 
communicants in the Holy Supper confirm the testimony, that, 
although unbelief shuts us out from the blessings of the prom- 
ises and ordinances, w T e cannot thereby make them of none 
effect. Our faith does not make, and our unbelief cannot 
unmake them. The same objective reality is in every case 
presented, and in every case it is one and the same thing, whose 
benefits faith appropriates, and unbelief rejects. 

That Judas was at the Supper of the Lord seems highly 
probable. Matthew and Mark, after telling us that our Lord 
" sat down with the twelve" describe the Institution of the Sup- 
per without giving a hint of the departure of Judas. Luke, 
who proposed to write " in order," and who is generally re- 
garded as most precise in his chronology, in direct connection 
with the words of the Supper, immediately after them, tells us 
our Lord said : " But, behold ! the hand of him that betrayeth 
Me is with Me on the table." (Luke xxii. 21.) The force of 
the word " immediately," in John xiii. 30, is not such as to 
exclude the possibility of what Luke seems so distinctly to 
assert, and what the two other synoptical evangelists more 



646 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

than imply, to wit, that Judas was present at the Lord's Sup- 
per, and such is the judgment of the oldest and best commen- 
tators, and, among them, of Calvin himself, and of others, who, 
in common with him, had a doctrinal interest in denying the 
presence of Judas. Moreover, as John does not give an account 
of the Institution of the Supper, we may naturally settle the 
chronological and other questions connected with it from the 
synoptists. But if our Lord could say to Judas also, " Take, 
eat, this is My body," then the sacramental character of the 
Supper cannot depend upon the worthiness or faith of the 
receiver. 

In all divine provisions for the salvation of man, we must 
discriminate between the essence, which is of God, and is, like 
Him, unchanging, and the use of them, which is by man, and 
is conditioned on his faith. The divine reality is neither 
affected by the character of the giver, nor of the receiver, as 
a gold coin does not cease to be gold, though the giver hands 
it away carelessly as a piece of brass, and the receiver takes it 
as brass and casts it into the mire. Faith is not a Philoso- 
pher's Stone ; it cannot convert lead into gold ; it can only 
grasp what is. Nor can unbelief by a reverse process convert 
gold into lead ; it can only reject what is. " Unto us was the 
gospel preached, as well as unto them ; but the word preached 
did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that 
heard it." The gospel, the word, the sacrament, remain one 
and the same, but the profit connected with them depends upon 
the faith of those that receive them. 

God is not far from any one of us, yet none but the believing 
realize the benefits of His presence. The multitude thronged 
and pressed upon Jesus ; His presence was equally real in its 
essence to all, but the saving efficacy of it went forth in virtue 
only to the woman who touched His clothes in faith. (Mark 
v. 30.) So Christ is present in the sacramental drapery alike 
to all communicants, but the touch of faith is needed to par- 
ticipate in the virtue of His healing. The touch of those who 
crucified our Lord was no less real than that of the woman 
whose touch brought healing ; but their touch, like the un- 
worthy eating and drinking, made them " guilty of the body 



THE COMMUNION OF THE UNWORTHY. 647 

and blood of the Lord." And as no indignity which they 
could offer to the raiment of our Lord could make them guilty 
of His body and blood, so may we reason that no indignity 
offered to bread and wine, even if they were the sacramental 
medium of the body and blood of Christ, and still less if they 
were but bread and wine, could make those who offered it 
guilty of the body and blood of Christ. The truth is, that the 
terms in which the guilt of the unworthy communicants is 
characterized, and the fearful penalties with which it was vis- 
ited, to wit, temporal judgments, even unto death, and eternal 
condemnation with the world, if the sin was not repented of, 
make it inconceivable that the objective element in the Lord's 
Supper is bread and wine merely ; but if the body and blood 
be there objectively, then must they be received sacramentally 
by all communicants. If it be said Christ cannot be substan- 
tially present to unworthy communicants according to His 
human nature, otherwise they must derive benefit from it, it 
might be correctly replied, neither can He be substantially 
present with them according to His divine nature, otherwise 
they must derive benefit from that ; but the latter is conceded 
by the objector, therefore he must concede that his argument 
is of no weight against the possibility of the former. Christ 
is a Saviour, but He is also a judge. 

But if it be granted that the presence of the body and blood 
of Christ in the Supper is one which is fixed, absolute, and 
unchanging, then must it be substantial, and not imaginary ; 
not a thing of our minds, but of His wonderful person ; not 
ideal, but true ; faith does not make it, but finds it, unto life ; 
unbelief does not unmake it, but, to its own condemnation, fails 
to discern it. The sacramental presence is fathomless, like the 
Incarnation ; like it, also, it is in the sphere of supernatural 
reality, to which the natural is as the shadow. The presence 
of the communicant at the Supper belongs to a lower sphere 
of actuality than the presence of the undivided Christ in it ; 
and the outward taking and eating is the divinely appointed 
means whereby the ineffable mystery of the communion of 
Christ's body and blood is consummated, a communion heav- 
enly and spiritual in its manner over against all that is earthly 



648 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

and fleshly ; but in its essence more true than all earthly truth , 
more real than all earthly reality, more substantial than all 
earthly substance. The body and blood of Christ are more 
truly present in the Supper than are the bread and wine, 
because their sphere of presence is divine ; the bread and wine 
are but the gifts of the hand of God, the body and blood of 
Christ are inseparable constituents of God's incarnate person. 

The Non-Lutheran interpreters have made concessions of 
great importance in their interpretation of these texts. Gual- 
ther, one of the greatest of the Zurich divines (d. 1586), says : 
" Shall be held guilty of the same crime with Judas who 
betrayed Christ, with the Jews and soldiers who scourged 
Him, spit upon Him, wounded, crucified Him, and shed His 
blood." 

Pareus : Heidelberg (d. 1622) : " Judas betrayed, the Jews 
condemned, the soldiers pierced Christ's body and shed His 
blood upon the Cross. They who abuse the sacrament are 
absolutely partakers in their crime (sceleri prorsus communi- 
cant)" 

Sebastian Meyer, of Berne: " They commit murder (ccedem 
committere) and shed the Redeemer's blood," " incur the dread- 
ful crime of parricide." 

One more proposition remains to be touched, but it is nega- 
tive in its character, and in this, dissertation we have proposed 
to confine ourselves to the positive and thetical. Here, there- 
fore, we reach the end of our exhibition of the positive propo- 
sitions in which our great Confession sets forth the faith of 
our Church. We have the ^yq simple propositions which are 
yielded by the analysis of the Tenth Article. We have viewed 
them purely as Scriptural questions. We have treated them 
very much as independent propositions, establishing each on 
special evidence of its own. But, while the argument for the 
faith of our Church is so strong on each head as well as on the 
whole as to bear even this severe process, it should not be for- 
gotten that none of these are, in fact, isolated. They cling 
together with all the internal coherence of divine truth. The 
truth of any one of them implies the truth of all of them. If 
we have failed in establishing four separately, yet have sue- 



THE COMMUNION OF THE UNWORTHY. 649 

ceeded in establishing one, then have we in establishing that 
established the five. 

The sense of the words of the Institution which our Church 
confesses, which is derived from the words themselves, is sus- 
tained by every Scripture allusion to them. Not only is there 
not the faintest hint anywhere that they are figurative, but 
every fresh allusion to them gives new evidence that they are 
to be taken as they sound. If the offering of the ancient sacri- 
fices pointed to a true offering of Christ, the eating of the sacri- 
fices necessarily points to a true, though supernatural, commu- 
nion of the body and blood which He offered. If the slaying of 
the Paschal Lamb pointed to the slaying of Christ's body, the 
sacramental reception of the body of the Lamb of God must be 
a part of the New Testament Passover ; the Lord's Supper can- 
not substitute an unreality for a reality, but must substitute 
a higher reality for a lower one. If Moses meant what he said 
when he declared, as he sprinkled the book and the people : 
" This is the blood of the Testament which God hath enjoined 
unto you " (Heb. ix. 20), then must our Lord be accepted at 
His word, when, with the covenanting terms of the Old Testa- 
ment, the Testament of Moses, so clearly in his eye, and mean- 
ing to mark the New Testament antithesis, He says : " This is 
My blood, of the New Testament." Every Scripture declara- 
tion in regard to the Supper of the Lord points, with an 
unvarying tendency, to the great result which is treasured in 
the faith of our Church. When we ask, What is it which 
Christ tells us to Take, eat? He replies, This is My body, not 
This is a sign of My body. When we ask, What does the 
bread communicate ? St. Paul replies, The bread which we 
break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ ? not the 
communion of the sign of His body. When we ask, What is 
he guilty of who eats and drinks unworthily ? the answer is, 
He is guilty of the body and blood of Christ, not of the sign 
of the body or sign of the blood. When we ask, How did the 
unworthy communicant come to incur this guilt ? what did he 
fail to discern ? the reply is, Not discerning the Lord's body, 
not that he failed to discern the sign or symbol of Christ's 
body. We cannot tear from its place the sacramental doctrine 



650 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of our Church without tearing up the whole Evangelical sys- 
tem. The principles of interpretation which relieve us of the 
Eucharistic mystery take from us the mystery of the Trinity, 
the Incarnation, and the Atonement. We cannot remove 
Christ from the Sapper and consistently leave Him anywhere 
else, and we can take no part of Christ from the Supper with- 
out taking away the whole. The very foundations of our faith 
give way under the processes which empty the Lord's Supper 
of its divine glory. The Sacramental Presence is the necessary 
sequel, the crowning glory of the Incarnation and Atonement ; 
and the illumination of the Holy Spirit in the word which 
enables the eye of Faith to see God in the body, and redemp- 
tion in the blood, enables it to see the body in the bread, and 
the blood in the cup, not after the manner of the first man, 
who is of the earth, earthy, but after the manner of the second 
Man, who is the Lord from heaven. 

The Lutheran Church believes, on the sure warrant of God's 

vi. summary wor d, that {he body of our Lord Jesus remains a 

view of the lu- true human body, and as to its natural and deter- 

theran Doctrine . 1 .. 

of the sacramen- mmate presence has been removed from earth, and 
tai presence of } s - m ^ gi orv of the world of angels and the re- 

Christ, on three ° ^ . ° 

Points. i. Modes deemed. She also believes that in and through the 
of Presence. divine nature with which it forms one person, it is 
present on earth in another sense, no less true than the former. 
She believes that the sacramental elements are divinely ap- 
pointed through the power of the Saviour's own benediction, 
as the medium through which we participate, after a spiritual, 
supernatural, heavenly, substantial, objective, and true man- 
ner, " in the communion of His body and of His blood." (1 
Cor. x. 16.) Our Church never has denied that the ascension 
of Christ was real, literal, and local ; never has denied that His 
body has a determinate presence in heaven; never has main- 
tained that it has a local presence on earth. Neither does she 
impute to Him two bodies — one present and one absent, one 
natural and the other glorified — but she maintains that one 
body, forever a natural and true body as to its essence, but 
no longer in its natural or earthly condition, but glorified, is 
absent, indeed, in one mode, but present in another. As she 



MODES OF PRESENCE. 651 

believes that God is really one in one respect, and no less 
really three in another respect, so does she believe that the 
body of our Lord Jesus Christ is really absent in one respect, 
and just as really present in another. Christ has left us, and 
He never leaves us — He has gone from us, and He is ever 
present with us ; He has ascended far above all heavens, but 
it is that He may fill all things. As His divine nature, which 
in its totality is in heaven, and in its fulness is in Christ bodily, 
is on earth while it is in heaven, as that divine nature is pres- 
ent with us, without extension or locality, is on earth without 
leaving heaven, is present in a manner true, substantial and 
yet incomprehensible, so does it render the body of Christ, 
which is one person with it, also present. That body in its 
determinate limitations is in heaven, and in and of itself would 
be there alone, but through the divine, in consequence of the per- 
sonal conjunction, and in virtue of that conjunction, using in 
the whole person the attributes of the whole person in both 
its parts, it is rendered present. It is present without exten- 
sion, for the divine through which it is present is unextended 
— it is present without locality, for the divine through which 
it is present is illocal. It is on earth, for the divine is on 
earth — it is in heaven, for the divine remains in heaven, and 
like the divine it is present truly and substantially, yet incom- 
prehensibly. 

In other words, as our Church believes that the one essence 
of God has two modes of presence, one general and ordinary, 
by which it is present to all creatures, and the other special 
and extraordinary, by which it is present, so as to constitute 
one person, after which mode it is present to none other than 
to the humanity of Jesus Christ, and that both modes of pres- 
ence, although unlike in their results, are equally substantial ; 
so does she believe that this one humanity taken into personal 
and inseparable union with this one essence, has two modes of 
presence : one determinate, in which it is related to space, 
through its own inherent properties ; the other infinite, in 
which it is related to space in the communion of the divine 
attributes, and that both modes of presence, though unlike, 
are equally substantial. 



652 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Is it said that to deny that Christ's sacramental presence is 
local is to deny it altogether ; that to affirm that His determi- 
nate presence is in the realm of angels and of the glorified, is 
to affirm that He has no presence at all on earth? Be it said; 
but then, at least, let the odious libel that our Church teaches 
consubstantiation, or a physical presence, or a corporeal or 
carnal mode of presence, be forever dropped. Our Church 
never has denied that, in the sense and in the manner in which 
our Lord was once on earth, He is no longer here, but she 
maintains that the illocal is as real as the local, the supernatu- 
ral is as true as the natural. " A local absence," as Andrese 
said, in his argument with Beza at Montbeillard, " does not 
prevent a sacramental presence ; " the presence of Christ's 
humanity on earth, through the Deity, with which it is one 
person, is as real as is its presence through the properties of 
its own essence in heaven. The soundest theologians do not 
hesitate to declare in propositions which seem contradictory, 
but are not, " God is everywhere," and " God is nowhere," — 
everywhere in His fathomless omnipresence — nowhere locally 
or determinately ; and as is the presence of the divine, such 
is the presence it imparts to the humanity which is personally 
united with it. The man Christ Jesus is with us after one 
manner, and He is not with us after another manner; He is 
with us through the plenary exercise of His divine majesty, 
not with us in the local or determinate restrictions of space. 
" There is no contradiction in attributing contrary things to 
the same subject, provided they be affirmed in different respects 
and modes. "* 

The current view of un-Lutheran Protestantism practically 
2. a Living sa- is, that all we need for our redemption is a dead 
vi011r - Christ. We are to look back to Calvary to find 

peace in thinking of what was there done, and at the Lord's 
Supper we are to look back to the sacrifice once made for our 
sins. The current view excludes the necessity of a living 
Saviour in our redemption. According to it, we redeem our- 
selves, or the Spirit of God redeems us, by what Christ once 
did, and without any personal work on His part now. To the 

* Chemnitz, De cluab. Naturis, 179. 



A LIVING SAVIOUR. 653 

theology of a large part of the Church it would be no disturb- 
ing element if the divine nature of Christ had been separated 
from the human after the resurrection. Instead of a robust 
and mighty faith which hangs upon a living Saviour, and lives 
hj His life, we have a religioo of sentiment verging away into 
sentimentality ; a religion which lives by its own thoughts 
about a Saviour of bygone times. We have had in our hands 
a book on the Lord's Supper, by an American preacher, the 
frontispiece of which represents a lonely tombstone, and on it 
the words : " To the memory of my Saviour." Nothing could 
more sadly, yet vigorously, epitomize the tendency of which 
we speak — the graveyard tendency, which turns the great 
festival of the redemption into a time of mourning, and coldly 
furnishes forth the marriage tables with the baked meats of 
the funeral. The glory of the Lutheran system in all its parts, 
and especially in its doctrine of the Lord's Supper, is, that it 
accepts, in all its fulness, the Apostle's argument, " If, when 
we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of 
His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His 
life." Never, indeed, has the human heart been so taught as 
by our system in its purity to turn to the death of Christ for 
hope ; but our Church has been led by the Holy Spirit too 
deeply into all the fulness of truth to make an antagonism 
between the death of her Saviour and His life. 

If Christ must die to make our redemption, He must live to 
apply it. If the Lord's Supper is a sacrament of the redemp- 
tion made by His death, it is also a sacrament of the same 
redemption applied by His life. If it tells us that His body 
and blood were necessary to make our redemption, it tells us 
also that they are still necessary to apply the redemption they 
then made. He made the sacrifice once for all — He applies it 
constantly. We live by Him, we must hang on Him — the 
vine does not send up one gush of its noble sap and then 
remain inert. It receives the totality of life, once for all, but 
the sap which sustains it must flow on — its one, unchanging 
and abiding life puts itself forth into the new offshoots, and 
by constant application of itself maintains the old branches. 
If the sap-life ceases, the seed-life cannot save. Cut the branch 



654 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

off, and the memory of the life will not keep it from wither- 
ing ; it must have the life itself — and this it must derive suc- 
cessively from the vine. It could not exist without the origi- 
nal life of the vine, nor can it exist without the present life of 
the vine, be its past what it may. Faith cannot feed on itself, 
as many seem to imagine it can — it must have its object. The 
ordinances, the Word, and the sacraments give to it that by 
which it lives. Faith in the nutritious power of bread does 
not nourish — the bread itself is necessary. 

The man who feels a moral repugnance to the Scripture doc- 
trine of the Eucharist, will find, if he analyzes his 

3.ThePropitia- ' ' J 

tion and the sac- feelings thoroughly, that they take their root in a 
ramentai Pres- repugnance to the doctrine of the atonement by 

ence. . 

Christ's body and blood. The man who asks what 
use is there in a sacramental application of them in the Lord's 
Supper, really asks, what use was there in a redemptory offer- 
ing of them on Calvary. Pie may be using the terms of Scrip- 
ture, but if He takes his inmost thoughts before his God, he 
will probably find that he has been denying the true vicarious 
character of the sacrifice of our Lord — that he has fallen into 
that conception of the sacrifice on Calvary which is essentially 
Socinian, for everything which brings down the oblation of the 
Sou of God into the sphere of the natural is essentially Socinian. 
He will find that in his view his Lord is only a glorious mar- 
tyr, or that the power of His sacrifice is only a moral power ; 
that the cross is but a mighty sermon, and that those awful 
words, which, in their natural import unbare, as it is nowhere 
else unbared, the heart of Deity in the struggle of its unspeak- 
able love and fathomless purpose ; that all these are oriental 
poesy — figures of speech — graces of language. The theory 
of the atonement, which pretends to explain it, is rotten at the 
core. The atonement, in its whole conception, belongs to a 
world which man cannot now enter. The blessings and adap- 
tations of it we can comprehend in some measure. We can 
approach them with tender hearts full of gratitude ; but the 
essence of the atonement we can understand as little as we 
understand the essence of God. 

If Christ, through His body broken, made remission of sins, 



PROPITIATION AND SACRAMENTAL PRESENCE. 655 

why do we ask to what end is the doctrine that the same 
body through which He made the remission is that through 
which He applies it ? His body as such could make no remis- 
sion of sins, but, through the Eternal Spirit, with which it 
w T as conjoined in personal unity, it made redemption — His 
body, as such, may have no pow r er to apply the redemption or 
to be with the redeemed, but, through the same relation by 
which it entered into the sphere of the supernatural to make 
redemption, it reveals itself now in that same sphere to apply 
it. All theology, without exception, has had views of the 
atonement which were lower or higher, as its views of the 
Lord's Supper were low or high. Men have talked and writ- 
ten as if the doctrine of our Church, on this point, were a 
stupid blunder, forced upon it by the self-will and obstinacy 
of one man. The truth is, that this doctrine, clearly revealed 
in the New Testament, clearly confessed by the early Church, 
lies at the very heart of the Evangelical system — Christ is the 
centre of the system, and in the Supper is the centre of Christ's 
revelation of Himself. The glory and mystery of the incarna- 
tion combine there as they combine nowhere else. Communion 
with Christ is that by which we live, and the Supper is " the 
Communion." Had Luther abandoned this vital doctrine, the 
Evangelical Protestant Church would have abandoned him, 
He did not make this doctrine — next in its immeasurable im- 
portance to that of justification by faith, with which it indis- 
solubly coheres — the doctrine made him. The doctrine of 
the Lord's Supper is the most vital and practical in the whole 
range of the profoundest Christian life — the doctrine which, 
beyond all others, conditions and vitalizes that life, for in it 
the character of faith is determined, invigorated, and purified 
as it is nowhere else. It is not only a fundamental doctrine, 
but is amoii£ the most fundamental of fundamentals. 

We know what we have written. We know, that to take 
our Saviour at His word here, to receive the teachings of the 
New Testament in their obvious intent, is to incur with the 
current religionism a reproach little less bitter than if we had 
taken up arms against the holiest truths of our faith. We 
are willing to endure it. Our fathers were willing to shed 



656 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

their blood for the truth, and shall we refuse to incur a little 
obloquy ? The fact that we bear the name of a Church which 
stood firm when rationalizing tendencies directed themselves 
with all their fury against this doctrine of the "Word of God, 
increases our responsibility. When, at a later and sadder 
period, she yielded to subtlety what she had maintained suc- 
cessfully against force, and let her doctrine fall, she fell with 
it. When God lifted her from the dust, He lifted her banner 
with it, and on that banner, as before, the star of a pure Eu- 
charistic faith shone out amid the lurid clouds of her new 
warfare, and there it shall shine forever. Our Saviour has 
spoken ; His Church has spoken. His testimony is explicit, as 
is hers. The Lutheran Church has suffered more for her 
adherence to this doctrine than from all other causes, but the 
doctrine itself repays her for all her suffering. To her it is a 
very small thing that she should be judged of man's judg- 
ment ; but there is one judgment she will not, she dare not 
hazard, the judgment of her God, which they eat and drink to 
themselves who will not discern the Lord's body in the Sup- 
per of the Lord. 

We do not wish to be misunderstood in what we have said 
as to the moral repugnance to our doctrine of the Supper. We 
distinguish between a mere intellectual difficulty and an aver- 
sion of the affections. How New Testament-like, how Lutheran 
have sounded the sacramental hymns and devotional breath- 
ings of men whose theory of the Lord's Supper embodied little 
of its divine glory. The glow of their hearts melted the frost- 
work of their heads. When they treat of sacramental com- 
munion, and of the mystical union, they give evidence, that, 
with their deep faith in the atonement, there is connected, in 
spite of the rationalizing tendency which inheres in their sys- 
tem, a hearty acknowledgment of the supernatural and incom- 
prehensible character of the Lord's Supper. On the other hand, 
the evidence is overwhelming, that, as low views of the Lord's 
Supper prevail, in that proportion the doctrine of the atone- 
ment exhibits a rationalizing tendency. We repeat the propo- 
sition, confirmed by the whole history of the Church, that a 
moral repugnance to the doctrine that the body and blood of 



THE TESTIMONY OF TEE ANCIENT CHURCH. 657 

Christ are the medium through which redemption is applied, 
has its root in a moral repugnance to the doctrine that His 
precious body and blood are the medium through which re- 
demption was wrought. 

It is now admitted by dispassionate scholars, who are not 
Lutheran in their convictions, first, that the Zwing;- 

' ' b VII. The Logic 

lian doctrine was unknown in the most Ancient of the Exegesis 
Church. Second : that the doctrine of our Church HiltrVVhe 
in regard to the Lord's Supper, was certainly the Testimony of the 
doctrine of the fathers in the Church Catholic, 

* Albertinus: De Eucharistiae Sacram. Libri tres. Sec. ex Patribus. Dav. 1654. 
Folio. Still the greatest of the defences of the Calvinistic view. — Bellarminus : 
De Controv. Chr. Fidei. Paris. 1620. Folio. De Euchar. Lib. II. Chap. I. xxxix., 
Testimon. Patrum. The greatest single piece of Polemic in defence of the 
Church of Rome. — Claude : The Catholick Doctrine of the Eucharist in all ages 
(in answer to Arnaud) touching the belief of the Greek, Moscovite, Armenian, 
Jacobite, Nestorian, Coptic, Maronite, and other Eastern Churches. From the 
French. London, 1683, Folio. (Calvinistic.) — Cosin : The History of Popish 
Transubstantiation, to which is premised and opposed the Catholick Doctrine of 
. . the Ancient Fathers. London, 1676, 8vo. (Vigorously Anti-Romish in its 
negations, and decidedly Lutheranizing in its affirmation.) — Eucharist: A full 
view of the Doctrine and practice of the Ancient Church relating to London. 
1668, 4to. (Calvinistic.) — Faber, G. S.: Christ's Discourse at Capernaum fatal 
to the Doctrine of Transubstantiation. London, 1840. 8vo. (Copious Patristic 
Citation.) — Goode, Wm.: Nature of Christ's Presence in the Eucharist: 2 vols. 
8vo. London. 1856. Chap. V. The Testimony of the Fathers. (A tissue of par- 
tisan falsification. Anglican Low Church.) — Hospinian : Histor. Sacramentariae 
Pars Prior. Exp. Coen. Domin. in primitiv. et Veter. Eccles. Genev. 1681. Folio. 

— Marheinecke : Sanct. Patrum de Praes. Chr. in Coen. Dom. Senten. Triplex. 
Heid. 1811. 4to. — Melanchthon : Sententiae veterum aliquot Scriptorum de 
Coena Domini. (1530.) Corpus Reformat, xxiii. 727-753. — (Ecolampadius : De 
Genuina verb. Dom. juxta vetustissimos auctores expositione Bas. 1525. 8vo. 
Quid de Eucharistia veter. tarn Graeci, turn Latini senserunt. Dialogus. (1530) 
in QHcolampad., et Zwingli Epistola. Lib. III. — Pusey, E. B.: The Doctrine of the 
Real Presence, as contained in the Fathers from the death of St. John the Evan- 
gelist to the Fourth General Council, vindicated. Oxford and London. 1855. 8vo. 

— Waterland: Review of the Doctrine of the Eucharist, as laid down in Scrip- 
ture and antiquity. Oxford, 1868. 8vo. (Abundant patristic citation.) — The 
recent German works which present more or less copiously the patristic history 
of the doctrine are: 1. Doctrines and History: Ebrard, 1845; Kahnis, 1851; 
Ruckert, 1856; 2. History: Dollinger, 1826; Engelhardt (Ztschr. fur histor. 
theol. 1842. Steiz, Jahrb. f. dtsche Theol. 1864-65. Meier, 1842. Baur, Tertul- 
lian, Doctr). Tub. Ztschr. 1839.2. See Kahnis Dogm. ii. 182. Luthardt 
Dogm. 3 74. 

42 



658 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

from the Fourth to the Mnth Century — the second theological 
age, the golden, or, as it is called, the classic age of Christian 
antiquity, to wit: that "the presence of the Lord in the Eu- 
charist " is " real, according to substance, in, with, and under 
the species," (Marheinecke). The first age, from the Apostolic 
writings to the end of the third, is, we "believe, no less decided 
in its unity on the same doctrine. To this conviction the 
studies of the greatest of the English patristic scholars of our 
age has led him. His testimony, given as the final result of 
years of close investigation, has probably as great weight as 
human testimony is capable of having on a point of this kind. 
Of his vast patristic scholarship there is no dispute. Of his 
great personal purity there is no question. Reared in a Church 
which confesses the Calvinistic view of the Supper, his educa- 
tion was adverse to the perception of the force of testimony 
sustaining the Lutheran view. If he be charged with Roman- 
izing views, in some parts of his theological thinking, it may 
heighten the value of his testimony here, where he maintains 
the Catholicity of the Lutheran view, over against the Romish 
corruption in the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and the force 
of the whole is heightened by his unconcealed aversion, in 
many respects, to the Lutheran Church. We mean, as the 
reader has already anticipated, Dr. Pusey. In his vindication 
of the doctrine of the real Presence, as contained in the fathers 
from the death of St. John the Evangelist to the Fourth Gene- 
ral Council, he demonstrates that " the belief that, the elements 
remain after consecration in their natural substance was not sup- 
posed of old to involve any tenet of consubstantiation : " that, 
" Consubstantiation was not held by the Lutheran body : " 
which he demonstrates from the symbols of the Lutheran 
Church, and from Luther himself. By a most patient exami- 
nation of evidence, which he cites in full, he shows, upon the 
one hand, that the doctrine of Transubstantiation is no doc- 
trine of the earliest Church, and that the doctrine of a true, 
objective presence of the body and blood of Christ, and under 
the bread and wine, is its doctrine. No better summary of his 
labors, and of the conviction they strengthen in his mind, can 
be given than that with which he closes his book : 



SUMMARY OF PATRISTIC TESTIMONY. 659 

" I have now gone through every writer who in his extant 
works speaks of the Holy Eucharist, from the time when St. 
John the Evangelist was translated to his Lord, to the dates 
of the Fourth General Council, A. D. 451, a period of three 
centuries and a half. I have suppressed nothing ; I have not 
knowingly omitted anything ; I have given every passage, as 
far as in me lay, with so much of the context as was necessary 
for the clear exhibition of its meaning. Of course, in writers 
of whom we have such large remains as St. Augustine and St. 
Chrysostom, or in some with whom I am less fa- 
miliar, I may have overlooked particular passages, patristic Testi- 
Yet the extracts are already so large, so clear, and mony b y Dr - Pu - 
so certain, that any additional evidence could only 
have coincided with what has been already produced. Alber- 
tinus did his utmost on the Calvinistic side. His strength lies 
in his arguments against a physical doctrine of Transubstan- 
tiation ; his weakness, in the paradox which he strangely 
maintains, that the Fathers did not believe a real Objective 
Presence. In so doing, he treats the Fathers as others of his 
school have treated Holy Scripture on the other Sacrament. 
When his school would disparage the doctrine of Baptism, 
they select passages from Holy Scripture, in which it is not 
speaking of that Sacrament. In like way Albertinus gains the 
appearance of citing the Fathers on the orthodox side (as he 
calls it), i. e., the disbelief of the Real Presence, by quoting 
them when they are not speaking of the Holy Eucharist, but, 
e. g., of the Presence of our Lord's Human Nature in Heaven, 
or the absence of His Visible Presence upon earth ; of the natu- 
ral properties of bodies ; or of spiritual, as distinct from sacra- 
mental Communion, or of the Eucharistic and outward Symbols, 
under which the Sacramental Presence is conveyed. Supported, 
as he thinks, by these, he proceeds to explain away, as he best 
may, the clear and distinct passages which had hitherto been 
alleged from the Fathers, in proof of the Doctrine of the Eeal 
Presence. Yet the very diligence of Albertinus on the one 
side, or of Roman Catholic controversialists on the other, 
obviously gives the more security that nothing can have been 
overlooked which could seem to support either side. 



660 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

"In the present collection, I have adduced the Fathers, not as 
original authorities, but as witnesses to the meaning of Holy 
Scripture. I have alleged them on the old, although now, on 
both sides, neglected rule, that what was taught ' everywhere, 
at all times, by all,' must have been taught to the whole Church 
by the inspired Apostles themselves. The Apostles planted ; 
they watered ; they appointed others to take their ministry, to 
teach as they had themselves taught from God. A universal 
suppression of the truths which the Apostles taught and the 
unmarked substitution of falsehood, is a theory which contra- 
dicts human reason, no less than it does our Lord's promise to 
His Church. There is no room here for any alleged corruption. 
The earliest Fathers, St. Ignatius, St. Justin Martyr, St. Ire- 
nseus, St. Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, or St. Hippolytus, 
state the doctrine of the Eeal Presence as distinctly as any 
later Father. 

" And now, reader, if you have got thus far, review for a 
moment from what variety of minds, as of countries, this evi- 
dence is collected. Minds the most simple and the most philo- 
sophical ; the female martyrs of Persia, or what are known as 
the philosophic Fathers ; minds wholly practical, as Tertullian 
or St. Cyprian, St. Firmilian, St. Pacian, or St. Julius ; or those 
boldly imaginative, as Origen ; or poetic minds, as St. Ephrem, 
or St. Isaac, or St. Paulinus ; Fathers who most use a figurative 
and typical interpretation of the Old Testament, as St. Am- 
brose, or such as, like St. Chrysostom, from their practical 
character, and the exigencies of the churches in which they 
preached, confined themselves the most scrupulously to the let- 
ter ; mystical writers, as St. Macarius ; or ascetics, as Mark, the 
Hermit, or Apollos, or the Abbot Esaias ; writers in other 
respects opposed to each other; the friends of Origen, as St. 
Didymus, or his opponents, as Theophilus of Alexandria and 
St. Epiphanius ; or again, St. Cyril of Alexandria or Theo- 
doret ; heretics or defenders of the faith, as Eusebius and 
Theodorus, Hereacleotes, Arius, or St. Athanasius ; Apollina- 
rius or St. Chrysostom, who wrote against him, Nestorius or 
St. Cyril of Alexandria — all agree in one consentient exposi- 
tion of our Lord's words, ' This is My body, this is My blood.' 



SUMMARY OF PATRISTIC TESTIMONY. 661 

Whence this harmony, but that one spirit attuned all the vari- 
ous minds in the one body into one ; so that the very heretics 
were slow herein to depart from it ? 

" There is a difference ofttimes in the setting, so to speak, of 
the one jewel, truth. We may meet with that truth where we 
should not have expected it ; some may even be deterred, here 
and there, by the mystical interpretations of Holy Scripture, 
amid which they find it. That mystical interpretation is no 
matter of faith. But a mode of interpretation which presup- 
poses any object of belief to be alluded to, when scarce any- 
thing is mentioned which may recall it to the mind, shows at 
least how deeply that belief is stamped upon the soul. It is a 
common saying, how ' Bishop Home found our Lord Jesus 
Christ every where in the Psalms, Grotius nowhere.' Cer- 
tainly our Lord must have been much in Bishop Home's heart, 
that everything in the Psalms spoke to his soul of Him. So 
much the more, then, must our Lord's gift of His body and 
blood have been in the hearts of the early Fathers, that words 
which would not suggest the thought of them to others spoke 
it to them. 

" But however different the occasions may be upon which the 
truth is spoken of, in whatever variety of ways it may be men- 
tioned, the truth itself is one and the same — one uniform, 
simple, consentient truth ; that what is consecrated upon the 
altars for us to receive, what, under the outward elements is 
there present for us to receive, is the body and blood of Christ ; 
by receiving which the faithful in the Lord's Supper do verily 
and indeed take and receive the body and blood of Christ ; by 
presuming to approach which, the wicked (i. e. those who with 
impenitent hearts wilfully purpose to persevere in deadly sin, 
and yet venture to ' take the sacrament ') become guilty of 
the body and blood of the Lord ; i. e. become guilty of a guilt 
like theirs who laid hands on His diviue person while yet in 
the flesh among us, or who shed His all-holy blood. 

" Now, we have been accustomed to value Ante-Mcene Testi- 
monies to the divinity of our Lord ; we are struck when St. 
Cyprian (while deciding as to the baptism of infants on the 
eighth day) lays down the doctrine of the transmission of 



662 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

original sin as clearly as St. Augustine amid the Pelagian con- 
troversy. 

" Yet the principle of these questions is one and the same. 
The argument is valid for all or for none. Either it is of no 
use to show that Christians, before the Council of Mce, did 
uniformly believe in the divinity of our Lord, as the Church 
has since, or it is a confirmation of the faith, that they did 
receive unhesitatingly in their literal sense our blessed Lord's 
words : ' This is My body.' 

" This argument, from the consent of those who had handed 
down the truth before them, was employed as soon as there 
were authorities which could be alleged. So rooted was the 
persuasion that certain truth must have been known to those 
who received the faith from the first, that even heretics resorted 
to the argument, and garbled and misrepresented the Fathers 
before them, in order to bring them to some seeming agree- 
ment with themselves. The argument was used by minds in 
other respects of a different mould. Theodoret and St. Leo 
appended to works on controversial points of faith citations 
from the Fathers before them. St. Augustine vindicated against 
Pelagius, and St. Athanasius against Arius, authorities which 
they had misrepresented. Even the Fathers, assembled from 
the whole world in general councils, have, in proof of their 
decisions, wherein all were agreed, alleged the authorities of 
yet older Fathers, who were known in previous ages to have 
handed down the Apostolic truth. 

" Yes, along the whole course of time, throughout the whole 
circuit of the Christian world, from east to west, from north to 
south, there floated up to Christ our Lord one harmony of 
praise. Unbroken as yet lived on the miracle of the day of 
Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit from on high swept over the 
discordant strings of human tongues and thoughts, of hearts 
and creeds, and blended all their varying notes into one holy 
unison of truth. From Syria and Palestine and Armenia, 
from Asia Minor and Greece, from Thrace and Italy, from 
Gaul and Spain, from Africa Proper and Egypt and Arabia, 
and the Isles of the Sea, wherever any Apostle had taught, 
wherever any martyr had sealed with his blood the testimony 



SUMMARY OF PATRISTIC TESTIMONY. 663 

of Jesus, from the polished cities or the anchorites of the desert, 
one Eucharistic voice ascended : ' Eighteous art Thou, Lord, 
and all Thy words are truth.' Thou hast said, ' This is My 
body, this is My blood.' Hast Thou said, and shalt not Thou 
do it ? As Thou hast said, so we believe. 

" Truly, Lord, ' Thy holy Church throughout all the world 
doth acknowledge Thee.'" 

But not alone from the hand of one who, though in a non- 
Lutheran Church, has become Lutheran on this point, have 
we testimony as to the identity of our faith with the faith of 
the early Church of the Fathers. We have the same testimony 
from others within the Reformed Church, whose concessions are 
the more striking because those who make them still refuse to 
accept the Lutheran faith. On this point, one citation may suf- 
fice. It is from Peter Bayle,* the unrivalled general scholar of 
his age. He says : " There are Protestants who, 
without holding the opinions of the Lutherans, are, 
nevertheless, convinced that, in forming hypotheses (to harmo- 
nize the statements of the Fathers on the Eucharist), the view of 
the Augsburg Confession is preferable to all others in furnishing 
a reason for the phrases of antiquity. For, as the expressions 
in regard to Jesus Christ which seem most directly in conflict 
with each other are best harmonized — so that not even a 
shadow of contradiction remains, by the supposition that he is 
both God and man in unity of person — in the same way all the 
terms, difficult, inflated, hyperbolic, simple, and direct, which 
the Fathers used in speaking of the Holy Sacrament, can be 
easily harmonized on the supposition that, in the Supper, is 
present at once both the humanity of Christ and the substance 
of the bread." 

*Nouv. de la Rep. des Lettres, 1687, Febr. Art. II., 129-131. 



XIII. 

THE DOCTRINE OF THE LORD'S SUPPER CONSIDERED 
IN ITS ANTITHESIS. 

(AUGSBURG CONFESSION. ART. X.) 



WE have, in our previous dissertation, discussed the thetical 
part of the Tenth Article, and now reach the closing words, 
„ , , in which , very "briefly stated , we have the antithesis. 

The Antithesis. . . J J . 

It is in these words : first, in the Latin, " et impro- 
bant secus docentes," " and they disapprove of those who teach 
otherwise ;" second, in the German, "derhalben wird auch die 
gegenlehr verworfen," " therefore also the opposite doctrine is 
rejected." In the Latin, the errorists are spoken of; in the 
German, the error. The Latin was designed more especially 
for the learned classes, the German was meant for the people, 
and is therefore more cautious even than the Latin against 
phraseology, which might be misconstrued as a warrant for 
personal animosity. Our confessors carefully avoided all ap- 
peals to the passions of men. Everything harsh and revolu- 
tionary was contrary to the spirit of Conservative Reforma- 
tion, which is wholly distinct from that of radicalism and 
revolution. This conservative spirit prompts the softness of 
the language toward persons : " improbant," they " are disap- 
proved of;" while it bears, in all its force, the decisiveness 
toward error; it u \s rejected." The errorists, moreover, are 
regarded as errorists, not as individuals. We may love, es- 
teem, cherish, see their virtues, stand in any relation of amity, 
which does not imply approval of error, or connivance at it ; 
but in so far as errorists are " secus docentes," teaching other- 

664 



WHO ARE MEANT IN THE ANTITHESIS? 665 

wise than the truth, we disapprove of thern, " improbamus." 
So far as their doctrine is "gegenlehr," — counter to the 
truth, — it is rejected (verworfen). It has been asked why the 
" damnant," or harsher condemnatory word, is used «. Improbant » 
in the antitheses to the other Articles, and the seem- — wu y used? 
ingly milder " improhant " is used here? The answer to this 
is that the heresies condemned are more directly in conflict 
with the general faith confessed by the whole Catholic or Uni- 
versal Church in the (Ecumenical Creeds, and that the persons 
specially had in view in this " improbant," professed to hold 
with our confessors on every other point than that of the Sup- 
per, and some of them, as the Tetrapolitans, declared that even 
on this point the differences were more verbal than real. There- 
fore our confessors, in the exercise of that charity which 
" hopeth all things," and to avoid closing the door upon all 
prospect of bringing those who professed to be so near them to 
perfect accord, used the mildest term consistent with truth — 
a term which, however, was none the less strong in the thing, 
because of its gentleness in the form. 

The question now arises, who are they that are here alluded 
to, and why are they disapproved of, and their doc- _ 

«/ 1/ ^ xrr Who are meant 

trine rejected? We might make various classifica- in the Antith- 
tions of them. One of the most natural is derived 
from the various parts of the Divine testimony against which 
their error is arrayed. And here it must be remembered that 
the antithesis is, in its logical sequence, prospective as well as 
retrospective. It involves in its rejection all future errors 
against the truth confessed, as well as errors then past or then 
present. If a new form of error were to arise to-day in con- 
flict with the testimony of the Confession, it is disapproved of 
by that anticipation with which truth, in its simple unity, 
reaches the Protean forms of errors. New heresies are, for the 
most part, but the shifting of masks. The errors classified 
after the plan which we suggest may be arranged under three 
generic heads : The errors, first, of those who are arrayed 
against the Scripture testimony as to the outward element, to 
wit, the Romish and Greek Churches, which, by their doctrine 
of transubstantiation, deny the presence of true bread and true 



\ 

666 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

wine in the Lord's Supper. Second, of those who deny the 
Scripture testimony in regard to the internal or heavenly ele- 
ment, the Zwinglians, Calvinists, Socinians, and Rationalists, 
who deny the objective presence of the true body and blood of 
our Lord Jesus in his Supper. Third, of those who deny both, 
who, combining, as it were, the two erroneous extremes, con- 
tend that in the Lord's Supper there is neither bread nor body 
— wine nor blood — and maintain that the Supper is not an 
objective, permanent institution, but a purely ideal, spiritual 
thing. Such are the Quakers, and certain schools of mystics. 

The long array of what claims to be argument in behalf of 
the various mistaken views which are rejected in the Antithe- 
sis to the Tenth Article may be classified under these heads : 
Arguments from a false grammar ; a false lexicography ; a 
false rhetoric ; a false philosophy ; a false dogmatic ; a false 
construction of history ; a false presumption as to the effect of 
the Scriptural doctrine on the Christian life. 

In regard to these various genera of error, and the argu- 
ments for them, some of the species have been abandoned — 
some have been already sufficiently noticed in the thetical 
treatment of the doctrine — some are unworthy of notice. 
We may, therefore, confine ourselves to the form of error 
in regard to the Lord's Supper which we are, practically, 
most frequently called to meet. It is not likely that we will 
meet a Carlstadtian, who will maintain that the key to the 
words is that Christ pointed to His body, when He said, 
" This is My body ; " or an " (Ecolampadian," who will say 
that the word "body" is metaphorical; or a " Schwenkfeld- 
ian," who will argue that the subject is predicate, the predi- 
cate subject, and that the words are to be inverted, " My body 
is this." The modern argument against the true doctrine of 
the Lord's Supper rests ordinarily on two exegetical assump- 
tions, both of which have the common feature that whereas 
the truth rests on what Christ actually said, in its direct sense, 
these assume that the interpreter is justified in adding to our 
Saviour's words, and in modifying their natural force. 

Two chief centres of the most recent controversy, as to the 
of the words of the institution, are "touto" and 



« T OUT 0" — "THIS." 6C7 

" esti." Does " touto " mean " this bread " ? does " esti " mean 
" signifies, is a symbol of" ? 

Of " touto" — " this" — Capellus, a Reformed divine, says, " the 
entire controversy hinges on the meaning of ' this.' " 

J ° -inn "Touto"— "This." 

In regard to the proper grammatical force of " tou- 
to," the truth seems to be very simple. The Saviour break- 
ing bread and giving it to His disciples, and saying, " Take, 
eat," commenced with the word " touto," a proposition which 
might, in conformity with the truth, have ended either with the 
word a art os," or, as it actually did, with the word "soma." 
He might, looking at the thing given simply on its natural 
side, have said, " This is bread," or might have said, as He 
actually did say, contemplating it on its supernatural side, 
" This is My body." Hence, apart from all other reasons, it is 
evident that neither the word "bread," nor the word "body," 
is to be supplied after " touto," as it is inconceivable that our 
Lord should have uttered an identical proposition — a proposi- 
tion whose two parts are tautological repetitions of each other, 
or would be self-involved. In the first case the proposition 
would be " This bread is bread ; " in the other it would be 
" This body is My body." Hence, if there were no other 
reason whatever for the interpretation, it is evident that the 
" touto " is used here, as it is used in all phrases fairly paral- 
lel with this — indefinitely indicating simply " this thing," — 
" this," whose definite character is to be stated in the words 
which follow. The grammatical question in hand here is 
really this, and no more, whether the demonstrative pro- 
noun " touto," in the neuter gender, standing where it does, 
and used as it is, may be considered as qualifying " artos," 
" bread," in the masculine understood ; in other words, 
whether we may read in " artos " after " touto," so as to make 
the sense " This bread is My body " ? In advance of the direct 
grammatical argument, we might settle the question by asking 
of the reasoner to state his argument in Greek. Now, stating 
it in Greek, he will write what no educated Greek ever wrote — 
"Touto artos." What is not logical in Greek is not so in 
English. Now, then, we affirm, Jirst, that it is the rule that a 
pronoun shall agree with its antecedent, or the noun it quali- 



668 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

fies, in gender ; second, that in the seeming exceptions to this 
rule, in which the demonstrative pronoun is of a different gen- 
der from the thing alluded to, that exception arises from the 
fact that the thing is thought of as a thing, and not in the 
grammatical force of its name ; third, that in such cases, con- 
sequently, we may not supply the grammatical name of the 
thing, but must conceive of it indefinitely as a thing, so that 
in no case whatever is it lawful to read in after a demonstra- 
tive, a noun of a different gender from its own. The general 
rule, therefore, stands in this case, and decides it. The rule 
specifically applied here is, that a demonstrative pronoun 
qualifying a noun agrees with that noun in gender. Now 
" touto " does not agree in gender with " artos," and " artos" 
may, therefore, not be supplied. 

Against the critic who maintains that we may reach gram- 
matically the construction : " This bread is," some of the points 
which we consider decisive in the case are here: 1. The word 
artos (bread) had not been used by our Lord at all. He had 
simply said : " Take, eat, this is My body." The word artos 
the critic gets from Matthew's narrative. No such word as he 
reads in was used antecedently to our Saviour's declaration. 
He says that, as our Saviour uttered the words : " This is My 
body," the " this " refers to the word artos. Our reply in brief 
is, there was no word artos to refer to. That word is Matthew's 
word, written long after our Lord's ascension. The artos ex- 
pressed cannot be the antecedent to our Saviour's touto, for the 
simple reason that there was no artos expressed. 

2. Our second point is this, that as there is no precedent 
artos standing in any possible grammatical relation to the touto, 
if we get the artos in at all, we must get it in by supplying it 
by conjecture from the mind of the speaker, and adding it 
after the touto, thus : touto artos, & neuter pronoun qualifying 
a masculine noun. 

3. Oar third point is, that the pronoun never varies from 
the gender of the noun it qualifies, or agrees with. Our infer- 
ence, therefore, is, that as on the critic's theory, touto, a neuter 
pronoun, must qualify artos, a masculine noun, that theory is 



TEE SCRIPTURAL EXAMPLES. 669 

false, and is utterly overthrown by the rule that a pronoun 
shall agree with its antecedent in gender. 

To every text cited or referred to by such a critic, one and 
the same answer will apply. In not a solitary one does the pro- 
noun differ in gender from the noun it qualifies, or which must 
be supplied to make the desired sense. In not a solitary case 
does a demonstrative pronoun differ in gender from the noun 
which must be supplied in order to make a required rendering. 
Not one instance can be found from Genesis to Malachi, in the 
Septuagint, or from Matthew to Revelation, in the New Tes- 
tament, in which such a conjunction must be made as that of 
touto neuter with artos masculine, in order to reach the full 
sense of a passage. 

Many of the supposed examples, in addition to the general 
lack of adaptation to their end, have a peculiar The Scriptural 
infelicity. One is Galat. iv. 24 : " Which things Ex a™P le *- 
are an allegory ; for these are the two covenants." " These," 
it is said, is feminine, corresponding in gender with covenants, 
though the antecedent is "which things." " Which things," 
we reply, is neuter, it is true, but " which things " is a pro- 
noun, and not the antecedent of the feminine "these." Nor 
has " covenants " anything to do with the gender of " these." 
The true antecedents are " bondwoman " and " freewoman," 
v. 22, 23, and the meaning is, " these women " are the two 
covenants. So clear is this, as the whole connection will show, 
that Luther, in the first twelve editions of his New Testament, 
and following him Tyndale and Coverdale, translate : " these 
women ; " the Genevan : " these mothers," and so the best in- 
terpreters of all schools, as Henry, De Wette, Fausset, Noyes. 
But if the critic were right in his exegesis, the text would not 
helphim,forhe could not read in "things," neuter, after "autai," 
feminine, so as to translate " these which things " autai atena. 

The second example given is Rev. xx. 14 : " This is the 
second death." " ' This ' is masculine, and agrees with c death,' 
though it really refers to the antecedent clause, which is, of course, 
neuter ! " If the critic has a Greek Testament with a reliable 
text, he will find that autos does agree with thanatos, and that 
the text literally runs : This death is the second. Even with 



670 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the received text, a good sense is : This (death) is the second 
death. How, too, can he imagine, even on his ground, that a 
" this " which refers to a previous sentence is parallel to a 
" this " which has no sentence or word on which it grammati- 
cally depends. Where is the parallel to toato artos? 

In Matt. xxvi. 28 : " This is My blood of the New Testament " 
is not parallel ; for it is not independent, and is connected with 
what precedes by the gar "for:" Drink of it, for this is My 
blood. The pronoun autoa (hereof, of it, of this) is connected 
with what follows: Drink of it* for this is My blood, and more- 
over does agree in gender with the noun poterion (cup), if a word 
is to be supplied, the word which is actually supplied in Luke 
xxii. 23 : This cup is. Now, the critic will not deny that in 
Luke xxii. 20, the gender of touto is determined by poterion 
(cup), not by aima (blood), and if it is so there, so must it be 
in Matt. xxvi. 27, where we know, on divine authority, that 
if we supply a noun at all, poterion is to be supplied, and where 
consequently the gender of touto would be determined, not by 
the noun in the predicate, but by the noun understood. If, 
then, artos were the noun understood here, as the critic sup- 
poses, the very principle of the text to which he appeals is 
decisive that the pronoun should be autos, masculine, not touto, 
neuter. If St. Luke had supplied a noun understood, as he 
does in the case of poterion, he would, according to the critic's 
principles, have written touto artos, which even he will not con- 
tend would be Greek. Yet, into this actually runs what he is 
now contending for, and what he has to prove, to wit, that 
the demonstrative pronoun requiring a noun to be supplied does 
not agree in gender with that noun. Not a solitary example 
adduced even contemplates the disproof of this position. Yet 
this is the very thing which is to be disproved. 

A true parallel in the main matter is found in 1 Cor. x. 28 : 
" If any of those that believe not bid you to a feast, . . if any 
man say unto you : This is offered in sacrifice to idols, (more 
literally, This is idol-sacrifice, ' a thing offered to a god,') eat 
not." Here is a real as well as a verbal example ; for it speaks 
of the very eating of which St. Paul makes a contrasting paral- 
lel with the " communion of the body of Christ." What does 



LUTHERAN THEOLOGIANS. 671 

" this " mean here ? Not the idol-sacrifice, for that would make 
an identical proposition : This idol - sacrifice is idol - sacrifice. 
But there is no noun whatever in the context to which touto 
can refer ; the force of " this " is, therefore : This which you 
are about to eat is idol-sacrifice. If a translator, on the ground 
that he knew that flesh was used for sacrifice, should insist on 
rendering, or on building on the rendering: This flesh is idol- 
sacrifice, it would be decisive against him that touto is neuter, 
and sarx (flesh) is feminine. We need not multiply examples. 
Our principle is so simple and easy of application, that even 
the English reader can run it out for himself in these and other 
passages. The testimony is unvarying, complete, and over- 
whelming, that in every case really parallel with the present 
the view we take is correct, which is, that when Jesus says, 
" Take, eat, this is My body," He means, This which I tell 
you to Take, eat, is My body. 

The correct view in regard to touto, to wit, that it cannot qual- 
ify or refer grammatically to artos, has been maintained by a large 
majority of the best scholars in all parts of the religious world. 

The accepted view of the Lutheran theologians is that touto 
cannot refer grammatically to artos. This is espe- Lutheran Th ^ 
cially illustrated among those we have examiued °i°g iiins - 
by Gerhard, Quenstedt, Calovius, Carpzov, Oliarius, Scherzer, 
Bengel, and the best both of our earlier and later commenta- 
tors. Gerhard, for example, says, in his Harmonia : " The 
whole argument for transubstantiation from the words of the 
institution rests upon the hypothesis that by the pronoun ' this ' 
is denoted the bread. But the ' this,' used deictically, has 
not reference to the bread alone, but to the whole complex. 
If the bread alone were meant, what sort of a grammatical 
construction would result? — 'Touto artos.' When Paul, 
1 Cor. x. 16, makes bread the subject, then the predicate is not 
1 body of Christ,' but ' communion of the body of Christ ; ' 
when Luke places the ' cup ' as the subject, the predicate is 
not c blood of Christ,' but the 4 New Testament ' in His blood. 
The pronoun ' this ' is therefore used, not adjectively, but 
substantively, so that there is an exhibitive proposition." 

The true view is accepted even by some of the ripest Roman 



672 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Catholic scholars, much as the concession embarrasses the argu 
ment for transubstantiation. Maldonatus, whose Commentary 
on Matthew is regarded by Romanists as the very best ever 
written od that Gospel, is especially worthy of examination on 
Roman Catho- this point. When Romish testimony agrees with 
no Expositors. the p rotestantj it has fecial value. 

It is the view of many of the most thoughtful and reliable 
Protestants who are not Lutherans, and who have a strong 
dogmatic temptation to overcome, in order to be faithful to 
the truth. We will give a few of these, as they come from 
sources where we might least expect them. 

Dr. Henry Hammond, a classic among the older commenta- 
tors of the Church of England, says : " It must here be ob- 
served that the word touto, this, is not the relative to artos, 
bread, but of the neuter, whereas that is of the masculine, and 
consequently it is not here said, This bread is My body." 

The best interpreters of the Calvinistic Unionistic School 
have abandoned the theory that " touto " can refer grammati- 
cally to "artos." 

Dr. John J. Owen in his Notes on Matthew (New York, 
Reformed Di- 1857), on this point, says : " The form of words in 
vines. the original does not refer so much to the bread, 

which is not mentioned, as to the thing." 

Lange, the latest commentator of eminence on Matthew, 
confessedly one of the greatest scholars of the age, but strongly 
anti-Lutheran, says : " This is My body. This, in the neuter, 
therefore not directly 6 dprog (the bread)." 

Stier, who was Unionistic, says, in regard to touto : " If any- 
thing be certain in regard to this matter, it is the sober word of 
Bengel, which is faithful to the simple letter, and has, therefore, 
become classical, ' hoc quod vos sumere jubeo,' this which I com- 
mand you to take." With this Hengstenberg, originally from 
the Reformed side in the Union, concurs with what Stier calls 
an " almost Lutheran approval." Stier says further in the 
note : " The Lutheran divines maintain this as the force : This 
which I command you to eat. They are right." And again, 
in the text : " There is good reason why our Lord does not say 
this bread." 



IK WHAT SENSE THIS BREAD, ETC. 673 

Alford : " The form of expression is important, not being 
' auTog o apvosy not the bread, but the thing itself." Dr. Schaff 
quotes these words of Alford as confirming the view of Lange, 
and thus endorses the judgment of these two interpreters. We 
may, therefore, say that the theory that " this,'' the confessed 
subject in the sacramental proposition, means grammatically 
" this bread " is a theory abandoned by the best scholars of the 
school which is most interested in maintaining it. 

But even if it were granted that the true resolution of the 
grammatical form is into " This bread is My body," In what sense 
the desired inference, that the meaning is, " This This bread is the 
bread is a symbol of My body," is as remote as ever. 
For, first, if Christ had said, " This bread is My body," He 
would have implied that no other bread is His body : but as a 
symbol all bread is equally Christ's body. Second : the reason 
why this bread is His body must lie in something which has 
taken place, since there was simply bread upon the table at the 
Lord's Supper. It must be something which has taken place, 
since that bread was in the mere natural sphere of all bread. 
When it thus lay, it was not true of it that it was Christ's body 
any more than all other bread is. Between the lying of that 
bread on the table, a mere thing of nature in all its relations, 
and the affirmation " This is My body," six things had oc- 
curred. 1. He " took "it, the incarnate Almighty, after whose 
taking (Matt. xiv. 19) five loaves and two fishes had satisfied 
the hunger of five thousand men, besides women and children, 
and had left twelve baskets full of fragments. He " took " it, 
after whose taking (Matt. xv. 36) four thousand men, besides 
women and children, were fed, and seven baskets of fragments 
remained. 2. He "gave thanks" as He had done in the stu- 
pendous miracle of creation in which He fed the thousands 
(Matt. xv. 36). 3. He " blessed " the bread, as in the supernatu- 
ral feeding (Matt. xiv. 19), and in virtue of that word of om- 
nipotent benediction, the border of the realm of nature was 
passed, and all that followed was under the powers and condi- 
tions of the infinite supernatural. 4. He " brake it," as He 
had broken the mystic loaves and fishes (Matt. xv. 36). 5. 
He "gave it " to His disciples, as He had given the loaves and 

43 



674 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

fishes to His disciples for the multitude (Matt. xiv. 19 ; xv. 86). 
6. He had said, " Take, eat," and had assigned as the reason 
why this solemn preparation had taken place, and this com- 
mand was now given : " This is My body." If " this " means 
" this bread," it means not that bread which was before the six 
acts, but this bread, which is eaten after the six acts ; and if it 
be called the body of Christ now, it is not because it is a sym- 
bol of the body, for this it was then, but because it is now what 
St. Paul expressly calls it, " the communion," or medium of 
the communication of Christ's body. Conceived in this way 
the word bread would mean the complex result of the sacra- 
mental union, the sacramental bread in its supernatural con- 
junction with the sacramental body. This bread, this complex, 
is not symbol but reality. It is literally Christ's true body, as 
it is literally true bread. As the words, " This man is God," 
applied to Christ, means, This man is literally God personally, 
(in virtue of the personal union), yet is literally man naturally, 
Christ is true man and true God ; so the words, This bread is 
Christ's body, mean, This bread is literally Christ's body sac- 
ramentally, (in virtue of the sacramental union,) yet is literally 
bread naturally. The Eucharist is true bread and true body. 
Before the miraculous blessing of the five loaves and the fishes 
it was true, That food is not food for thousands ; after the bless- 
ing, it was true, This food is food for thousands : before the 
blessing that bread was not the body of Christ ; after the bless- 
ing, This bread is His body. 

Hence the Ancient Church and the Lutheran Church, holding 
The Ancient ^ ne sa nie faith, have not hesitated at all to use the 
church. expression, " This bread, or the sacramental bread, 

is Christ's body," while both would repudiate as error the idea 
that bread, as bread, can be called Christ's body. The fathers 
are very explicit in affirming that it is not bread, as bread, of 
which they affirm that it is Christ's body, but that bread 
whose character is conditioned by the six sacramental acts of 
our Lord. Thus Jerome* : " The bread which our Lord brake 
and gave to His disciples is His body r ." Gaudentiusf: "When 
our Lord reached the consecrated bread and wine to His disci- 

* Epist. ad Hedebiam. f In Exod. Tract 2. 



THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 675 

pies, He said: This is My body." Facundus* : "Our Lord 
called the bread and cup which had been blessed, and, which He 
delivered to His disciples, His body and blood." Maxentiusf: 
" The bread which the whole Church partakes of in memory of the 
Lord's passion is His body." Theodoret $ : " After consecration, 
we call the mystic fruit of the vine the Lord's blood." Ter- 
tullian § : " Christ, when He had taken bread, and distributed it 
to His disciples, made it His body by saying, 4 This is My 
body.'" Cyril of Jerusalem || : " When the invocation is made, 
the bread becomes the body of Christ and the wine His blood." 
Gregory Nyssen T : " At first the bread is common bread, but 
after the mystery has consecrated it, it is both called and becomes 
the body of Christ." Augustine**: " Not all bread, but only 
that which receives the blessing of Christ, becomes Christ's 
body." The author of the Book on the Sacraments, imputed 
to Ambrose (L. IV. ch. iv.) : " Perhaps thou wilt say, My bread 
(the bread of which I speak) is ordinary bread ; but though 
that bread is (ordinary) bread before the sacramental words, yet, 
when the consecration takes place, the bread becomes the body of 
Christ. . . How can that which is bread be the body of Christ ? 
By consecration. By whose words is this consecration? By 
the words of the Lord Jesus. Whatever else may have gone 
before, as praise to God, and prayers, yet when the venerable 
sacrament itself is to be consummated, the priest no longer 
uses his own words, but uses the words of Christ. Wherefore 
it is Christ's word by which the sacrament is consummated. 
What is Christ's word? That by which the universe was 
made out of nothing. . . It was not the body of Christ before con- 
secration, but after consecration it is the body of Christ. He 
hath said, and it is done. Wine and water are put into the 
cup ; but it becomes blood by the consecration of the heavenly 
word." 

The Lutheran Church, holding the same Eucharistic faith 
with the Ancient Church, does not hesitate to employ the 

* In Defens. 3. Capit. Lib. IX. c. ult. f Dialog. 2. c. 13. 

% Dialog. 1. § Catech. Mystag. 2. 

|| Cont. Marc. L. IV. ch. 40. \ Orat. in Christ. Baptisma. 

** Serm. de diversis. 87. 



676 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

same language in the same sense. Luther often uses the 
expression : " This bread, or the sacramental bread, is the 
body of Christ." He does this with respect to three objects. 
First, to assert the reality of the bread over against the error 
of transubstantiation. Second, to deny the exclusion of the 
sacramental bread from the complex of the 

Luther. . A 

Saviour s meaning, as was done by Carlstadt ; and, 
third, to assert the character of the bread as the medium of a 
true impartation of the body of Christ, involving a true pres- 
ence of that body. Thus of the first he says * : " The gospel 
calls the sacrament bread. Consequently, the bread is the body 
of Christ. By this we abide ; it is sure over against the dreams 
of the sophists, that it is bread which it (the gospel) calls 
bread." He is not speaking of touto in its relation to artos, or 
to anything bearing upon it in any way. Luther is arguing 
against transubstantiation. Over against the theory that it is 
the accidents of bread which are the Sacrament, on its earthly 
side, he says that bread itself is. He says : " Consequently, 
that is, logically, over against transubstantiation, the bread, 
not its accidents, is the body of Christ." While Luther and 
the Lutheran Church deny that the expression " bread is the 
body of Christ " is found in the Bible, they admit that there is 
a sense in which it may be allowed as a part of human termi- 
nology, and, where the Romanist says the accidents of the 
bread, and not bread itself, are the visible part of the Sacra- 
ment of Christ, Luther replies: No; the bread, true bread, 
is that Sacrament ; and over against the Romish theory 
that the mere species of bread, and not its substance, is the 
communion of Christ's body, Luther maintains that true 
bread is that communion, or, in virtue of the sacramental 
union, that, in a certain sense, it is (not is like) the body of 
Christ. On the second point, Luther demonstrates in his whole 
argument against Carlstadt that the proposition cannot mean 
"This body, to which I point, is My body, broken for you," 
but "This which I tell you to take, eat, is My body." This 
sacramental complex, in a word, is both bread and body ; and, 
because of the sacramental union, we can say, This bread is 

*Werke. Leipzig Edi. Vol. XVIII. p. 421. 



FORMULA OF C ONC ORD— GERHARD. 677 

Christ's body. Hence, in the third place, Luther makes the 
point : " It is no longer mere bread of the oven, but bread of 
flesh, or bread of body, that is, a bread which is sacramentally 
one with the body of Christ. . . It is no more mere wine of the 
vintage, but wine of blood, that is, a wine which has come to 
be a sacramental unit with the blood of Christ.''' * 

In conformity with the ancient phraseology the Formula of 
Concord declares : " The bread does not signify the Formula of 
absent body of Christ, and the wine the absent concord. Ger- 
blood of Christ ; but by means of (propter) the sac- 
ramental union, the bread and wine are truly the body and 
blood of Christ."f Gerhard:): has so admirably explained the 
meaning of the ecclesiastical phrase " The bread is the body 
of Christ," that a citation from him will render any other 
unnecessary. " Although the proposition, ' The bread is the 
body of Christ,' does not occur in so many words in the Scrip- 
ture, we do not, by any means, disapprove of it, inasmuch as 
the church-writers, ancient and recent, frequently employ it. 
From the words of Christ, c Take, eat, this is My body,' and 
the words of Paul, ' The bread which we break is the commu- 
nion of the body of Christ,' we are to estimate its meaning and 
explain it, and hence it is usual to call it a sacramental proposi- 
tion. This may be more clearly understood by noting what 
follows. In all regular affirmative predications, it is required 
that there shall be a mutual agreement and coherence between 
the subject and the predicate. If this agreement be intrinsic 
and essential, the predications are essential ; if it be extrinsic 
and accidental, the predications are accidental. From the rule 
in logic, that one thing cannot be affirmed literally and without 
type to be another thing (disparatum de disparato proprie 
adfirmate non posse predicare), the adversaries draw the infer- 
ence that the proposition ' The bread is the body of Christ ' is 
figurative. But they ought to know that besides those ordinary 
predications, which conform to the rules of logic, there are in 

*Werke. Leipzig, xix. 497: " Fleisches-brod oder Leibs-Brod so rnit dem 
Leibe Christi ein Sacramentlich Wesen . . worden ist . . ein Wein, der mit dem 
Blut Christi in ein Sacramentlich Wesen kommen ist." 

■j- Epitome. Art. VII. ii. J Loci. Cotta. x. 155. 240 seq. 



678 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

theology predications not in ordinary use (inusitati), in which, 
on account of the mystic union, one thing is said, without a 
trope, to be another thing. Such propositions are of two kinds, 
personal and sacramental. The personal are those in which 
the human nature is predicated of the divine nature of the 
Logos, and, on the other hand, the divine nature of the Logos 
is predicated of the human nature assumed, in the concrete, to 
wit, on account of the personal union. Such expressions are 
these, God is man, Man is God, the Son of Mary is the Son of 
God. Sacramental propositions are those in which the heav- 
enly thing is predicated of the earthly element, on account of 
the sacramental union, such as these, the bread is the body of 
Christ, the wine is the blood of Christ. As in the abstract the 
divine nature of the Logos is not predicated of the human, nor 
the human of the divine, but only in the concrete, which is a 
manifest proof that the personal union is the cause and source 
of these predications ; so also it is not predicated of the bread, 
as such, but only in its sacramental use, that it is the body of 
Christ ; and hence it is usual to add to the subject, and say the 
eucharistic bread, the consecrated bread, the bread which we 
break is the body of Christ, and this again is a manifest proof 
that the sacramental union is the cause and source of the latter 
predication. If the adversaries say that the bread must be the 
body of Christ either in a literal or a figurative sense, we answer 
that there is a third sense, to wit, the sacramental, by which is 
meant that the bread is the collating organ, the exhibitive sym- 
bol and vehicle, by which the body of Christ is communicated, 
or as St. Paul expresses it, it is the communication (koinonia) 
of the body of Christ. The bread is not transmuted into the 
body of Christ, nor is it a bare sign of the body of Christ, but 
is the organ and mean whereby the body of Christ is commu- 
nicated." 

The new view of Kahnis in regard to the Lord's Supper has, 
for various reasons, excited an interest beyond any- 

View of Kahnis. - ..'.,. , n »j t i -x 11? 

thing m its kind in our day ; and as it links itself 
with a confused perception of the points which are so clearly 
put by Gerhard, we shall introduce it here, and, as an act of 
justice to its author, shall give it entire, instead of breaking it 



VIEW OF KAHNIS. 679 

into fragments to fit the parts of it into their most natural 
place in our own discussion. The view of Kahnis has aroused 
extraordinary feeling, not merely nor mainly because of his 
distinguished ability as a theologian, but because, in various 
writings, but especially in his work on the Lord's Supper 
(1851), he had appeared as the defender of the distinctive 
Lutheran faith — a faith to which he had shown his devotion 
in 1848, by leaving the State Church of Prussia, to take part 
with the persecuted Old Lutherans. This faith, in more than 
one vital respect, he has recently abandoned. Most conspicuous 
among these changes are two, the first of which really neces- 
sitated the second. Kahnis abandons the doctrine of the proper 
and supreme divinity of Jesas Christ, and gives Him the place 
assigned by the theory of Subordination. In doing this he, of 
necessity, gives up the true doctrine of the Sacramental Pres- 
ence — a presence which presupposes the Godhead of Christ, 
and the personal union of His human nature with it. In 
Kahnis' work, in which he aims at presenting an historico- 
genetical delineation of the Lutheran Dogmatics, he unfolds 
these changes of view. His presentation of his theory and 
argument on the Lord's Supper * is as follows : 

" The fact that in the exposition of the words of the Institu- 
tion the teachers of the Church, in all ages, have been divided 
into two camps, the one holding to a verbal sense, the other to 
a metaphorical sense of the decisive words, is in itself enough 
to set bounds to too confident a security on either side. Where 
difficulties exist of the character which here meets us, it is well 
to lay down propositions to which assent may, with justice, be 
demanded. First : It is beyond dispute, that the proposition, 
The bread is the body, the wine is the blood of Jesus, literally 
taken, is impossible. As in every proposition the subject is 
placed in identity with the predicate, by means of the copula, 
in such a way that the subject stands to the predicate in the 
relation of the individual to the general, it follows that there 
can be no logical meaning except in a proposition in which the 
subject stands to the predicate as the individual stands to the 

*Die Lutherische Dogmatik historisch-genetisch dargestellt. Leipz. 1861. Vol. 
I. 616-626. 



680 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

general. Now the bread (as bread) is not the body of Christ 
(as body). Bread and body are heterogeneous ideas, which can 
no more be united in one than the propositions : Wood is iron, 
Hegel is Napoleon, and such like. So soon as a proposition 
cannot be taken literally, as, for example, in the one just given, 
'Hegel is Napoleon,' the figurative exposition is in place — 
Hegel is a Napoleon in the sphere of science. 

" So, also, in the second place, it is beyond dispute that the 
proposition, This is My body, may be figurative (metaphorical). 
The Scripture contains innumerable figurative propositions. 
From the copula ' is ' it is alike impossible to demonstrate the 
figurative or the literal character of the proposition. The copula 
allows of no change of meaning. Those who say that ' is ' is 
equivalent to ' signify ' mean to say that either the subject or 
the predicate of a proposition is to be taken figuratively. 

" Thikdly, as to the words of the Institution as they sound, 
it may be affirmed, without contradiction, that in them the 
body of Christ is regarded as a body which is to be delivered to 
death. Though the body of the risen Saviour bore on it the 
marks of the crucifixion (John xx.), and men shall recognize 
Him at His second coming as Him whom they pierced (Rev. i. 
7), from which it follows that the slain body and the glorified 
body are identical, yet the words of the Institution contem- 
plate the body, not as glorified, but as put to death. That the 
blood which was to be shed, that is, literally, the blood of 
Jesus, which in His death left His body, has to be understood 
of the death of Christ, is shown by the proposition as Paul and 
Luke have it : This cup is the New Testament in My blood. 
The blood which has mediated a new covenant is that which 
was shed upon the cross, to wit, is the sacrificial death of Christ. 
If, then, these propositions stand, we have a sure basis for 
exposition. The Lutheran Church has the indisputable funda- 
mental principle of hermeneutics, that the literal exposition 
has the first claim, if the literal sense be at all tenable — a prin- 
ciple of special force in this case, in which the words are of 
such great importance — words which were given of the Lord 
to Paul by special revelation. 1 Cor. xi. 25. (See Kahnis, Lehre 
v. Abendm. 14 seq.) But this is only possible when in the 



VIEW OF KAHNIS. 681 

proposition, This is My body (My blood), the subject is not 
bread (wine). When the determination of the subject is in- 
volved, it is decided upon the one hand by the connection, 
on the other, by the predicate. The connection demands as 
subject bread (wine), as predicate, body (blood); and in this 
way the exposition found itself directed to the supposition of 
an internal connection of bread and body, and of wine and 
blood, in which the predicate gives prominence to the chief 
substance. Thus the physician, in giving an essence in water, 
says : This is a cordial. The ' this,' in such a sentence, is 
4 essence and water,' the predicate is the chief substance. 
When Christ says, ' My words are spirit and life,' from words 
as the subject, which are partly spirit, partly letter, He educes 
the essential substance. This mode of speech, to which Luther 
gives the name Synecdoche, is, in itself, admissible. The 
only question to be raised is, Is it admissible here? To a 
renewed investigation which we have given the subject, on the 
principle 'day teacheth unto day,' the difficulties connected 
with this view have presented themselves with increasing 
force. According to the connection, the ' this ' is that which 
Jesus took, brake, gave them to eat, that is, the bread. In 
the case of the cup, the subject is expressly specified as ' this 
cup.' 'Now cup (chalice), by the familiar metonomy ' container 
for thing contained,' stands for that which it contains. But 
what the chalice contains is wine. Christ does not say, ' That 
which ye now eat is My body, that which ye now drink is 
My blood, but that which I give you to eat and drink,' conse- 
quently is such in advance of the eating and drinking. The 
poteerion is the drink, as it was in the chalice before the dis- 
ciples drank. But before the eating and drinking it is still, 
according to the Lutheran doctrine, bread and wine, not the 
body and blood of Christ. But that poteerion means the wine. 
Yet undrunken is affirmed in Paul's exposition (1 Cor. x. 16) : 
4 The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion 
of the blood of Christ ? the bread which we break, is it not the 
communion of the body of Christ ? ' in which, beyond doubt, 
the bread, as broken for eating, the cup, as blessed for drink- 
ing, is called the communion. That which places us in commu- 



682 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

nion with the body and blood of Christ (Abendm. 127 seq.), 
consequently is such before the eating and drinking. But if 
bread (wine) be the subject, the literal meaning has to be 
abandoned. To this we are necessitated by the proposition, 
' This cup is the New Covenant in My blood,' inasmuch as it is 
impossible that a chalice of wine can itself be the covenant 
relation between God and man established by Christ in His 
death. The only exposition, therefore, is : This cup is a sign 
of the new covenant in My blood. The supposition that body 
and blood stand, by metonomy, for sign of body, sign of blood 
(QEcolampadius, Calvin) is untenable. No such metonomy 
can be shown. The proposition is like countless others, in 
which the predicate is figurative. Thus we say of a statue, 
This is Blucher ; of a serpent with his tail in his mouth : This 
is eternity. The supposition of a symbol is justified by the 
manifest symbolical character of the whole transaction. The 
bread which is broken is the body which is broken iklomenon) 
for us ; the wine which is poured out of a large vessel into the 
chalice is the blood which is shed for us (ekchunomenon). That 
the breaking of the bread has a special significance is shown 
by the designation of the bread which we break (1 Cor. x. 16), 
parallel with the cup which we bless. So, also, in Baptism, the 
submergence beneath the water is a symbolical act (p. 615). 
Had it been the glorified body which Jesus, at the Institution, 
offered in the bread, it might be imagined that somehow, 
though still in a mysterious and obscure manner, there was an 
impartation of it. But the body which was to be put to death, 
which stood before the disciples, could not be the object of the 
participation. 

" To this point the exposition of Zwingli is justified. But 
that it is impossible to stop here Calvin acknowledged, yet 
failed, because he rested the lever of his sacramental theory on 
hypotheses destitute of Scriptural support. In the words 
i This do in remembrance of Me,' our Lord commanded that 
this Supper should be celebrated from that time on in com- 
memoration of Him ; and it has been so done to this day. As 
often as it is celebrated Jesus dispenses, by the hand of the 
ministrant, bread and wine, as signs of His body and blood, 



VIEW OF KAHNIS. 683 

ordained by Him. But signs ordained and dispensed by God, 
through Christ, are not symbols — which would leave it unde- 
termined how much or how little we are to impute to them, 
bat are a visible word of God (p. 613). With the words of 
Christ, ' This do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of 
Me,' the apostle links the declaration : ' For as often as ye eat 
of this bread and drink of this cup, ye do show the Lord's 
death till He come.' Inasmuch as the Supper is a participa- 
tion of bread and wine as signs of the sacrificed body and 
blood, it is a memorial feast in which the guest confesses his 
faith in the sacrificial death of Christ. But he who makes 
such a confession before the Church, in reality must do it in 
a state of mind fitting it. ' Wherefore, whosoever shall eat 
this bread, or drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be 
guilty (enochos) of the body and blood of the Lord ' (v. 27). 
JEnochos, literally, bound for, when it has the sense of guilty, is 
conjoined with the genitive either of the sin, or of the penalty, 
or of the person and thing involved in the criminality incurred 
(Bleek on Heb. ii. 15. II. 339 seq. cf. 552). As immediately 
before, the Supper is spoken of as a confession of the death of 
Christ, we cannot well understand body and blood of Christ 
otherwise than as referring to the death of Christ, in the sin 
of which the unworthy communicant makes himself guilty 
(Lev. v. 1-17 ; 2 Sam. xxii. 22 ; 2 Mace. xiii. 6). He who con- 
fesses the death of Christ unworthily is guilty of the death of 
Christ. All men are guilty of the death of Christ. But he 
who believes in Jesus Christ seeks from Jesus Christ forgive- 
ness of the sin which crucified Christ. But he who receives 
forgiveness of his sin is thereby absolved from the guilt of the 
body and blood of Christ. He, consequently, who receives the 
Supper unworthily, really confesses : I have slain Christ, and 
does not receive forgiveness from that sin, and is, consequently, 
guilty of the body and blood of Christ. In this passage, 
beyond doubt, body and blood have the sense, death of Christ : 
4 Wherefore let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of 
that bread and drink of that cup. For he that eateth and 
drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to him- 
self, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause are many 



684 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

weak and sickly among you, and many sleep ' (v. 28-30). The 
unworthy reception of the Supper, which involves so great a 
guilt, produces, also, a serious punishment. He who eats and 
drinks bread and wine in the Supper as if they were common 
food and common drink, without considering that bread and 
wine are the body and blood of Christ, draws upon himself, by 
so eating and drinking, a penalty. Upon the body into which 
he receives bread and wine he draws sickness and death. It 
is at once apparent that such results cannot be explained on 
the theory that this is a mere symbolical transaction, in which 
there lies just so much as faith puts into it. This feast, or- 
dained and dispensed of God, through faith in Christ, has as 
its substance the divine word concerning the sacrificial death, 
which word, Jesus Christ, who has instituted this feast, im- 
parts to the recipient. Inasmuch as the word of God, as 
spoken or written, never goes forth void, but is a savor of 
death unto death to every one to whom it is not a savor of life 
unto life, so in the Supper the word concerning the atoning 
death of Christ is not merely set forth, but Christ applies it, 
by the hand of the ministrant, to the recipient for bodily recep- 
tion. But a visible word of God, which Christ applies to the 
individual after the manner of sensible reception, is a sacra- 
mental word. The same result is reached by attentively con- 
sidering 1 Cor. x. 16, seq. The discourse is of sacrificial flesh. 
As in Israel those who ate of the sacrifice entered into the fel- 
lowship of the altar, so those who participated in the banquets 
on the Heathen sacrifices entered into the fellowship of the 
gods who are Demons. He who drinks the cup of the Lord 
cannot drink the cup of Demons, and he who participates at 
the table of the Lord cannot take part at the table of Demons. 
' The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion 
of the blood of Christ ? The bread which we break, is it not 
the communion of the body of Christ ? For we, being many, 
are one bread and one body : for we are all partakers of that 
one bread ' (v. 16, 17). As the sacrificial flesh of the Jews and 
Heathen united them with the altar, and, consequently, with 
the God, or the gods, to whom the altar was reared, so is the 
bread of the Supper the communion, that is, the medium of 



VIEW OF KAENIS. 685 

communion (that through which the communion is made) with 
the body, the wine the communion with the blood. Body and 
blood of Christ cannot here mean the glorified corporeal nature 
of Christ, but only that which is sacrificed, that is, the death 
of Christ, because otherwise the point of comparison with the 
sacrificial feast is lost. The death of Christ is the sacrifice ; 
bread and wine the sacrificial meal. But here again bread 
and wine are not a mere symbol, but a sign which is, at the 
same time, a medium. Not faith, but bread and wine, brings 
into union with the sacrificed humanity of Christ. As the 
sacrificial flesh is not ordinary flesh, but a medium of fellow- 
ship with the divine being to whom it pertains, so, also, in the 
Supper, bread is not ordinary food, but a medium of fellowship 
with the sacrificed corporeal nature of Christ, to whom it per- 
tains. Bread and wine, consequently, signs of the body and blood 
of Christ, are, in virtue of the institution of Christ, the sacramental 
word of the body and blood of Christ, which word, commanded by 
Christ, applies to the death of Christ. The sacrificial death of 
Christ is a fact of the past, which abides only in its power, 
that is, in the reconciliation with God, which is its work. He, 
consequently, who partakes of the Lord's Supper worthily, 
that is, in faith, receives the virtue of the death of Christ, that 
is, forgiveness of sins. At this point Luther's doctrine is vin- 
dicated, according to which, forgiveness of sins is the proper 
fruit of the believing participation in the Lord's Supper. This 
doctrine Luther rested on the words : Broken for the forgive- 
ness of sins, which he explained, not of the death of Christ, 
bat of the impartation of the body of Christ in the Supper. 
This word concerning the forgiveness of sins, not the reception 
of the glorified body, is, to him, the main thing in the Sacra- 
ment. The body of Christ is to him but a pledge of the word. 
But in this mode of apprehending it, the exposition of klomenon 
is surely not tenable, for that word can only refer to the sacri- 
ficial death of Christ, as even the Formula of Concord teaches 
(Abendm. 99, 209). But even if this exposition were aban- 
doned, the relation of the word touching the forgiveness of 
sins to the glorified body would remain completely unadjusted 
(Abendm. 358). Finally, however, Luther's doctrine ignores 



686 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the weight which is attached to the death of Christ both by 
the words of the institution and the apostle's doctrine of the 
Supper. In all the passages which we have just been consider- 
ing, the language has reference, not to the glorified, but to the 
broken, or given body, that is, the sacrificed body. Even if 
the Supper was not instituted in connection with the feast of 
the Passover, yet Paul, in the words (1 Cor. v. 6, 7), ' Christ 
our passover is sacrificed for us,' and John (John xix. 36), by 
applying to the unbroken body of our Lord the Old Testa- 
ment command that the Paschal Lamb must not be broken 
(Exod. xii. 46 ; Ps. xxxiv. 20), represent the death of Christ 
as a paschal sacrifice. We have seen (Dogm. I. 262 seq.) that 
in the Passover lay the germ of the later worship. It was a 
propitiatory sacrifice, and, at the same time, a sacrificial meal. 
The fulfilling has separated into two elements the two parts 
of the Paschal Feast, the offering and the eating. Christ, the 
Paschal Lamb, was sacrificed on Golgotha, at the time when 
the paschal lamb was offered in the temple. This sacrifice, 
which Christ offered in His own body to God, is the fulfilling 
of all sacrifices, and, consequently, the last sacrifice, and has 
an objective atoning efficacy for all men, and forever more. 
After this sacrifice has been made, the appropriation of it 
remains, until Christ's second coming, the essence of the Sup- 
per, the transfigured paschal festival. In the bread broken 
and the cup blessed, God imparts, through Jesus Christ, in 
whose name it is dispensed, not merely a sign, but a visible 
word, which, to the believing recipient, is a medium of com- 
munion, a word concerning the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ. 
He who, in faith, partakes of the bread and wine as the Sacra- 
ment of the body and blood of Christ, receives the fruit of the 
death of Christ, to wit, the forgiveness of sins. 

" But even with this the significance of the Supper is not 
exhausted. To this the Passover, the type of the Supper, 
already points. The paschal supper was not a mere appropria- 
tion of the propitiatory virtue of the paschal sacrifice. It was 
the supper of the living fellowship of the people, of a unity of 
families, with God (Dogm. I. 262 seq). The Lord's Supper is, 
consequently, also, no bare appropriation of the propitiatory 



VIEW OF KAHNIS. 687 

virtue of the death of Jesus. The blood of the sacrifice which 
was offered to God is the life which has passed through death, 
and makes atonement for the sins of men (Dogm. I. 271 seq., 
and 584). In the New Testament, consequently, the blood of 
Christ is not merely a concrete expression for death, but means 
the life of this death, that is, the propitiatory power of it, 
which forever dwells in the corporeal nature of Christ which 
has passed through death (Rom. iii. 25 ; Eph. i. 7 ; 1 John 
i. 7 ; Heb. ix. 25 ; xiii. 20, and see, on them, Olshausen, Har- 
less, De "Wette, Bleek : Abendm. 63 seq). He, therefore, who, 
in faith, grasps the death of Christ, receives the propitia- 
tory virtue of the blood of Christ — the virtue which dwells 
in the glorified body of Christ. Hence St. John (1 John v. 
6-8) styles the Supper simply 'the blood.' As the appearing 
of Christ stood between water (Baptism) and blood (death), 
thus water and blood still testify of Him. The blood which 
testifies of Him can be nothing but the Supper. The sub- 
stance of the Supper is, consequently, Christ's death as a 
power of atonement. But he who receives this power of the 
glorified bodily nature of Christ, receives in himself Christ's 
bodily nature itself, and in and with it the entire living Christ. 
This is the mystical meaning of the discourse of Jesus in John 
vi. Jesus Christ calls Himself the bread which has come down 
from heaven, which gives life to him who eats of it. From 
this thought He advances in v. 51 : ' And the bread which 
I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the 
world.' After the offence which the people took at Him, He 
expresses this thought still more strongly : ; Verily, I say unto 
you, except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His 
blood, ye have no life in you. Whoso eateth My flesh, and 
drinketh My blood, hath eternal life ; and I will raise him up 
at the last day. For My flesh is meat indeed, and My blood is 
drink indeed. He that eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, 
dwelleth in Me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent 
Me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth Me, even he 
shall live by Me. This is that bread which came down from 
heaven : not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead : he 
that eateth of this bread ^hall live forever ' (v. 53-59). The 



688 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

bread of life which has come from heaven is the divine person- 
ality of Jesus Christ. To eat this bread can have no other 
meaning than to appropriate Jesus in faith. E"ow, as Jesus 
attaches to the eating of His flesh and the drinking of His 
blood the same operations which are attributed to faith (v. 47) 
and to the eating of the bread of heaven (v. 50, 51), namely, 
eternal life, the eating of the flesh of Christ cannot be, specifi- 
cally, anything else than the eating of the bread from heaven, 
that is, the faith which unites with Christ. The flesh of Christ, 
which He gives for the life of the world, is His body, which is 
to be given in death, that is, is His death. Eating the flesh 
and drinking the blood can, consequently, only mean the 
receiving in us, in faith, Jesus as the Crucified for us. This 
is the condition of salvation, of living fellowship with Christ, 
of everlasting life, of the resurrection. He who receives in 
himself Jesus Christ in His body and blood given to death, 
receives, in this bodily nature, slain for us, the life of Jesus 
Christ, which fills him with the powers of eternity. The unity 
of this proposition lies, beyond doubt, in this, that the power 
of the slain bodily nature of Christ is absorbed into the glori- 
fied bodily nature of Christ ; so that he who grasps the sacri- 
ficed bodily nature of Christ with its propitiatory power, 
together with the glorified corporeal nature, is filled, by it, 
with the entire person of Christ. The discourse in John vi. 
does not, primarily, treat of the Supper, but of that faith 
which establishes a living fellowship between us and Christ. 
But Christ, beyond doubt, designedly veiled the faith under 
the image of an eating of His flesh and drinking of His blood, 
in order to express the mystical thought which subsequently 
was to be transferred to the body in the Supper, just as in 
John iii. 5, He expressed the idea of Baptism. For the history 
of the exposition, see Abendm. 114 seq. It is now alone that 
we come to understand why Jesus calls bread and wine not 
merely signs of His death, but of His body and blood, which 
are to be given to death. Inasmuch as Christ designates His 
death as a suffering which is to be endured by His body, His 
blood, He means to express the thought that just as little as 
broken bread ceases to be bread, anc^wine poured out ceases to 



VIEW OF KAHNIS. 689 

be wine, just as little does that dissolution destroy the sub- 
stance of His body. He does not give us His death to eat, but 
His body. The bread signifies Christ's body, the breaking of 
the bread the killing of the body, the eating of the bread the 
appropriation of the slain body in faith. The Christian who 
grasps the slain body of Christ in faith, appropriates to him- 
self the death of Christ, and the body of Christ also, as he who 
eats of the broken bread makes use of the breaking that he 
may receive into him the bread. He who eats the broken 
bread commutes it into his organism, consequently into his 
life. He who, in faith, grasps the slain body of Jesus Christ 
makes it living by receiving into himself its vital power, that 
is, its power of atonement, If now, that which the body of Christ 
suffered in death inheres in the glorified body, then he who receives 
the atoning power immanent in the glorified body receives into him- 
self the glorified body itself and in and with it the ivhole Christ. 
This is the truth which lies in the Lutheran exposition of the 
words of institution. "We cannot grasp the slain body in faith 
without receiving the glorified body into us, because the virtue 
of the slain body lies in the glorified body. This reception is, 
it is true, no eating and drinking, but a spiritual reception by 
faith as a medium. The Lord's Supper is a spiritual eating 
and drinking (1 Cor. x. 3, 4, 12, 13. See Abendm. 145, seq.) 
He who, in faith, receives Christ's body and blood, receives 
the whole Christ into himself (John vi. 59), which can take 
place in no other than a spiritual manner. As, finally, the 
feast of the Passover was a feast of fellowship in which the 
people of Israel were contemplated as one great family of God 
(Dogm. I. 263), so is the Lord's Supper a feast of fellowship in 
which they who eat of the one bread are one body (1 Cor. x. 17)." 
Such, without abridgment, is Kahnis' own statement of his 
new faith, and of the argument for it. The feebleness, vacilla- 
tion, and self-contradiction involved in it are beyond expression. 
At some point or other it exhibits the characteristic weakness 
of almost every false view which has ever been taken of the Sup- 
per. It is artificial, and yet not artistic ; it is confused rather 
than complicated ; for with all its elaboration it is not difficult to 
disentangle it. It wears the air of a self-tormented rationalism 
44 



690 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

which abandons the faith, and is ashamed of its apostasy. It 
does not propose a single new point. All its issues were long 
ago made and met. It is, in part, Zwinglianism tricked out 
with rhetoric ; in part, Calvinism reached by circuitous by-paths ; 
in part, a reproduction of the weak point in the Syngramma 
Suevicum — in short, a clumsy appropriation and fusion of 
exploded views, which yet assumes the air of original discovery. 
It distributes, after the manner of a huntsman, alternate lashes 
and morsels to Zwingli, Calvin, and Luther; but certainly has 
this merit, that it would unite them so far that they would 
perfectly agree that such a view, on such grounds, is unten- 
able. Such of the points made by Kahnis as have not been 
anticipated in the previous part of our discussion will be taken 
up in what follows. 

It will be noticed that Kahnis takes the true view of the 

1. "is" De necessary force of "is;" and in this is in com- 

wette, and oth- plete conflict with the mass of rationalizing and 

rationalistic interpretation from Zwingli to this 

hour. The last refuge of this interpretation has been in the 

word which Kahnis surrenders. 

Thus, De Wette's note on &an is this : u In these contested 
words the sW (which, in the Aramaic denah hua gyphy, was 
not expressed) is the bare logical copula, and can, in itself, just 
as well amount to a real is (so Luther) or a symbolic is, that 
is, signifies (so Zwingli). But, in fact, the latter sense alone is 
admissible ; for the discourse and transaction is symbolical, like 
that in John xx. 22 (He breathed on them, and saith unto 
them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost), and in this instance, at 
least, the actual body of Jesus could not have been the subject 
of discourse. Eiva/ has the latter sense in 

" Luke xii. 1. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is 
hypocrisy. 

" Heb. x. 20. Through the veil, that is to say (tout's ui) (id est, 
das ist), His flesh. 

" John xiv. 6. I am the way, the truth and the life : no man 
cometh unto the Father but by Me. 

" John xv. 1. I am the true vine, and My Father is the hus- 
bandman. 



"IS." — DE WETTE, AND OTHERS. 691 

" John xv. 5. I am the vine, ye are the branches • he that 
abideth in Me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much 
fruit." 

Meyer adds, as a proof-text, that Ian "is the copula of the 
symbolic or allegoric sense' : " 

Gal. iv. 24. Which things are an allegory. For these 
(a^ai) are the two covenants. 

Lange, for the allegorical and symbolical occurrence of soW, 
adds to Meyer and De Wette as proof, only Ex. xii. 11. Ye 
shall eat it (the lamb) in haste ; it is the Lord's passover. 

Olshausen, to show that the sense of il signifies " is possible, 
cites : 1 Pet. i. 28. The word of the Lord endureth forever. 
And this is (touto fa sctj) the word which by the gospel is 
preached unto you. Philem. 12. Thou, therefore, receive him, 
that is (toutsovi), mine own bowels. John x. 7. I am the door 
of the sheep ; x. 9. I am the door : by Me if any man enter 
in, he shall be saved. 

In other writers, both of earlier and later date, we have these 
citations, as assumed parallels to the sacramental words : Gen. 
xli. 26. The seven good kine are seven years ; the seven good 
ears are seven years. 

With the Calvinists, in their theory of exhibitive sign, these 
texts were favorites : Titus iii. 5. The washing of regenera- 
tion — as if Baptism were called regeneration. 1 Cor. x. 4. They 
drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock 
was Christ. John i. 32. I saw the Spirit descending from 
heaven like a dove — as if it were said the Spirit is the dove. 
One of the most recent writers against the Lutheran view lays 
stress on the passage : " All flesh (is) grass," which he thinks 
indisputably means " All flesh is like grass ; " and thus proves 
that " is " may mean " is like," and that the proposition of the 
Supper, stated in full, is : " This bread is like My body." It is 
true the word " is " is not in the original of either Isaiah or 
Peter, but if it were, the interpretation proposed would stand, 
in general, where it now stands ; for when we change such a 
phrase as : " All flesh is grass" into " all flesh is like grass," 
the word " like " is derived, not from the " is," (especially when 
it is not there,) but from the "grass" Consequently, we may 



692 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

say : All flesh is grass-like ; Napoleon is fox-like. The critic 
fatally wounds his own theory, when, not at all to the point 
for the purpose he has in view, he says : " The mere juxtaposi- 
tion of the subject and predicate, without the intervening copula 
(the ' is '), is common in most languages, particularly Hebrew, 
and more especially in metaphorical language ;" that is, the word 
in which the metaphor lies, according to the critic's theory, is 
not only not necessary, but the very fact that language is meta- 
phorical leads to its omission. The stress of the metaphor is so 
violent upon the " is," as to squeeze it utterly out of the sen- 
tence. 

1. Of the views of the critic in regard to metaphor, as 

involved in the copula, with which the possibilitv 

2. Of the na- . , * J 

ture of metaphor of his interpretation of "is stands or falls, it is 
as affecting the enon g] :i to say that they are arrayed against the 
universal judgment of rational men ; that they do 
defiance alike to the statements of the most learned and of the 
most popular works. He says that in such a sentence as this : 
" Napoleon is a fox," Napoleon is literal ; which is very true ; 
and so also, he says, is fox. The one would, consequently, 
mean the man of that name, and the other would mean, liter- 
ally, the animal of that name. Hence Napoleon is like " an 
animal of the genus Vulpis, with a straight tail, yellowish or 
straw-colored hair, and erect ears, burrowing in the earth, 
remarkable for his cunning and his fondness for lambs, geese, 
hens, and other small animals."* 

2. How will our critic resolve this sentence : " Napoleon is 
Emperor of France, and a great fox ? " If " is " be literal and 
u fox " be literal, then he actually is a literal fox ; if " is " 
means is like, then Napoleon is like the Emperor of France. 
If, moreover, when we say N"apoleon is a fox, the word fox 
means the literal animal, what is meant by it when some one 
adds : That fox will be caught yet ? Is it the literal animal of 
the genus Yulpis, with the straight tail and the fondness for 
geese, which is then meant ? and yet cannot a child see that 
the word fox is used in the second case as it was in the first ? 

3. The critic himself, when he comes to explain the phrase, 

* Webster. 



OF THE NATURE OF METAPHOR. 693 

proves that " is like " is not sufficient as the meaning of "is," 
but that he must make it mean, " resembles in his reputed 
cunning." The verb "to be" means, then, "to resemble in 
reputed cunning " when it comes before the word " fox ;" it 
also means " to resemble in reputed firmness " when it comes 
before " rock ; " it means " to resemble in reputed feebleness" 
when it comes before " grass ; " " to resemble in reputed sweet- 
ness " when it comes before " rose." In other words, it means 
everything conceivable which begins with " resemble," and has 
such a range of meaning that we might set aside a vast host 
of words with which our language is now encumbered. 

4. To define, in a disputed case, the word " is " by " is like" 
is to do what, in its own nature, is inaccurate, and, in the pres- 
ent case, is absurd, for it repeats, in the definition, the word to 
be defined. If " is " by itself means " is like," what does it 
mean when combined with the word " like " ? If, when it is 
said "Napoleon is a fox," it means "is like a fox," what does 
it mean in the sentence thus produced ? Define the word " is " 
in the sentence : Napoleon is a fox. Now define the word " is " 
in the sentence : Napoleon is like a fox. 

The same objection virtually holds against all the other pro- 
posed definitions of " is." " Signifies " means " is a sign of; " 
"symbolizes" means "is a symbol ,4 of." If This is my body 
means This is a sign of my body, then This is a sign of my 
body means This is a sign of a sign of my body ; and this 
renewed "is " having the same force again of " is a sign," we 
have an interminable series in which nothing is or can be, but 
everything must be the sign of something else. 

5. What does our critic, on his theory, make of such expres- 
sions as this : Louis Napoleon is like a lamb, but is a wolf, 
nevertheless ? Why is it that when we ask what a thing is, 
and the reply is : It is like so and so, we rejoin : We did not 
ask you what it is like, but what it is f " He is not my brother, 
but he is exactly like him." How can terms which are the very 
opposite to each other in one case be synonyms in another ? 

6. How does this theory suit where the article is used in 
metaphor: "lam the door." lam like the door? What is 
the door Christ is like ? And if He is only like that door, would 



694 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

it not be better to find the door itself? " I am the vine." Who 
or what is that vine which Christ is merely like ? " Ye are 
the branches." Who are the branches, in fact, if the disciples 
are merely like the branches? "I am the way, the truth, and 
the life." What is the real way, the real truth, the real life, 
which Christ merely resembles ? 

How does it suit when a pronoun is added in metaphor: 
" Israel is my flock ; " Israel is like my flock ? What is God's 
real flock which Israel is like ? 

How does it suit when an adjective is used in metaphor : " I 
am the true Shepherd "? Who is actually the true Shepherd 
whom our Saviour is merely like ? 

How does it suit when qualifying nouns are added : " The 
rock of my strength; rock of salvation; to come t« ■ the rock of 
Israel ; upon this rock I will build my church ; I lay in Zion . . 
a rock " ? Where is the theory in these that the metaphor is 
not in the noun ? 

How does it suit in such phrases as : " Blessed be my rock"? 
Is some one who is like my rock the object of blessing ? " Unto 
Thee will I cry, Lord, my rock." If fox in metaphor is a 
literal fox, what does our Saviour mean when He says of 
Herod: " Go tell that fox " ? 

Can anything be more clfear than that the metaphor, in such 
cases, lies not in the substantive verb, which is unchanging in 
its meaning, but in the noun ? 

Will the critic please tell us the canon by which he settles 
it, that, in a certain case, where " is " connects two nomina- 
tives, it means or does not mean "is like"? How does he 
know that, in the sentence : " Louis Napoleon is Emperor," 
the " is " does not mean " is like," and that, in the phrase : 
" Louis Napoleon is a fox," it does mean " is like "? Does not 
the name Emperor, in the one case, and the name fox in the 
other settle it ? When he simply hears thus much : " Napo- 
leon is," he cannot tell, on his own theory, whether u is " means 
" is," or "is like." The metaphor must, then, lie, not in the 
verb, but in the name ; but it is conceded, that, in the Lord's 
Supper, it does not lie in the name ; therefore it is not there. 

When Wendelin (d. 1652) published his system he said: 



KE CKEBM ANN— PIS C ATOM. 695 

" The main controversy is on the meaning of the word ' is,' ' : 
and then states what had then come to be the accepted position 
of his party : " ' Is ' is taken for signifies : ' This is, that is, this 
signifies my body.' On account of this signification (propter 
hanc significationem) of the copula, or verb is, we say that 
Christ's words : ' This is my body,' ought not to be understood 
literally " (non debere intelligi proprie). From Zwingli's time, 
in fact, this has been the position, almost without exception, 
of all who have attempted to defend the metaphorical charac- 
ter of the words, and this is the position of most writers of that 
school now. Yet so invincible are the facts and principles that 
after the retreat to "is," as the point for a last struggle, 
many of the best Zwinglian and Calvinistic writers Concessions of 
felt themselves compelled to abandon it. At the the point by dai- 
beginning of the controversy Carlstadt and (Eco- 
lampadius admitted that " is " has the exact force claimed for 
it by Luther. On this point they stood with Luther against 
Zwingli. They concurred with Zwingli's doctrine, but denied 
the validity of his proof. They supposed him to have reached 
the truth by a process of error. His conclusion was right, 
though the reason which led him to it was wrong. The three 
men reached a common result of inference, though each one of 
the three premises implied the falsehood of the other two. 
Even after the violent controversies of the sixteenth century, 
when both parties had so many reasons which made the most 
powerful appeal to natural pride not to abandon a position with 
which their cause had been identified, Calvinistic theologians 
of the first rank confessed the old position in regard to " is " 
entirely untenable. Thu<s Keckermann (d. 1609) Keckermann, 
says : * " Some maintain that there is a trope in 1>lscator - 
the copula, a position which it is impossible to approve. . . 
There cannot be a trope in it." Still more extraordinary is 
the admission of Piscator of Herborn (d. 1626) who, following 
Beza, in controversy with Daniel Hoffmann, of Helmstadt (d. 
1611), had fully committed himself to the position whose falsity 
he came to confess. In his first work he had said : " I affirm 
that the metonomy lies in the substantive verb i is,' and I prove 

* System. Theolog. III. 8. 



696 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

it in this way : That metonomy is either in the subject, or in 
the predicate, or in the copula of the proposition. But it is not 
in the subject, nor is it in the predicate. Therefore it is in the 
copula." The reply of Hoffmann was so complete, that a result 
almost without parallel in controversy took place. Piscator 
acknowledged that his position was untenable : " I have been 
like a gladiator who, incautiously handling his sword, wounds 
himself with it. . . There cannot be a trope in the copula 'is.' 
In brief, before I enter on this third struggle, I retract my 
former opinion."* The ripest scholarship of the most recent 
period, even under Calvinistic prepossessions, shows the wisdom 
„„,.„,„„ of Piscator's retraction. Dr. Edward Robinson, for 
schaff, Kahnis. example, the greatest of American New Testament 
lexicographers, if, as a Puritan, he had been swayed by uncon- 
scious doctrinal influence (for of conscious misrepresentation 
he was incapable), would have been, of course, on this point, 
adverse to the Lutheran view. It is a happy thing for the 
truth here, that this eminent scholar, who so happily combined 
the results of English and German culture, saw and expressed 
the exact truth on this point. He says of eimi : " The verb 
eimi is the usual verb of existence, to be ; and also the usual 
logical copula, connecting subject and predicate : I. As the verb 
of existence, to be, to exist, to have existence. II. As the logical 
copula, connecting the subject and the predicate, to be ; where 
the predicate specifies who or what a person or thing is in 
respect to nature, origin, office, condition, circumstances, state, 
place, habit, disposition of mind, etc., etc. But these ideas all 
lie in the predicate, and not in the copula, which merely connects 
the predicate with the subject." What Eobinson says is one of 
the elementary philological truths on which sound thinkers, 
when once the point is fairly brought before their minds, can- 
not differ. Thus, for example, we have in Bagster's Greek 
Lexicon : f " Eimi, a verb of existence, to be, to exist ; a simple 
copula to the subject and predicate, and, therefore, in itself affect- 
ing the force of the sentence only by its tense, mood, etc." This 
same statement, word for word, is made by Green in his 
" Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament. "J 

* Scherzer: Colleg. Anticalv. Lips. 1704, 4to, 574. f London, 1852, 4to. 

J London, Bagster and Sons, 12mo. 



LUTHER'S VERSION. 697 

The point on which the confusion of imperfect or careless 
scholarship so often makes its blunders is brought out clearly 
by Dr. Robinson when he says : " The substantive of the pre- 
dicate often expresses not what the subject actually is, but what 
it is like, or is accounted to be ; so that eimi may be rendered to 
be accounted, etc." 

Dr. Philip Schaee, in his note, in his translation of Lange's 
Matthew, says : " The exact nature of the relation " (expressed by 
the copula) " depends upon the nature of the subject and the pre- 
dicate," that is, does not depend upon any mutations of mean- 
ing in the copula, and this, he says, " is an acknowledged law 
of thought and language." He adds: "It is, perhaps, more 
correct to say that the figure in these cases does not lie, as is 
usually assumed, in the auxiliary verb esti, but either in the 
subject, or more usually in the predicate."* Kahnis, as we 
have seen, acknowledges that his new view can find no support 
in the copula, and says, very correctly : " From the copula 'is' 
the figurative no more than the literal can be proven, in the 
proposition. The copula allows of no change of meaning. 
Those who say that ' is ' is equivalent to signifies, mean to say 
that either the subject or predicate of a proposition is to be 
taken figuratively, "f 

Because of this very inflexibility of meaning in the copula 
"is," the translations which desert the direct arrangement of 
the subject, copula, and predicate, drop the " is," and merge 
the whole thought in one complex. In this case the pretender 
to knowledge is apt to be drawn into the fallacy that the words 
which have the locality of the " is " translate the " is ; " whereas, 
in fact, they translate, in whole or part, the subject or predi- 
cate. Let us take Luther's version to illustrate Lllthcr > s Ver . 
this. "Where " is " stands in the original in various sub- 
combinations, Luther's version has upwards of one hundred 
and sixty renderings, and yet " is " has, through the whole, 
its one fixed sense : all the diversities arising from the connec- 
tion of the " is " — none from the " is " itself. Thus Gen. 
xxvii. 12 (Heb.) : " I shall be in his eyes as a deceiver ; " Author- 
ized Version: "I shall .seem to him as," etc.; Luther: "And 

* Lange's Matthew, 471. f Dogmat. I. 617. 



698 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

shall be esteemed (geachtet) before him," etc. Does the Author- 
ized Version mean to translate " is " by " seem; " or does Luther 
mean to translate it by " esteemed " ? Not at all ; but in both 
cases the complete idea " to be in his eyes as," is expressed in 
the more indirect form, and it must be assumed that " is " is 
perfectly literal in its meaning, in order that the complex idea 
may be reached. Jacob must really and literally be as a de- 
ceiver to justify the statement that he will be esteemed as such. 
We are not aware of an instance in which Luther uses "bedeu- 
ten " where " is " occurs in the original. In Ezek. xlvi. 17 
(Heb.) : " It shall be to him to the year of liberty ; " Authorized 
Version : " It shall be his ; " Luther : " He shall possess (be- 
sitzen)" ; not that " is " means to possess, but that to be to him, 
or be his, does mean to possess. The pronoun is involved in 
the translation. Deut. xxviii. 13 : " Thou shalt be above only ; " 
Luther : " Hover above " (Schweben). The adverb is involved. 
Isaiah xv. 6 : " There is no green thing ; " " There grows " 
(wachset). The subject conditions the translation. 

So inflexible is the substantive copula, that " is " may be 
inflexible char- written in a central column, and the ingenuity of 
acter of the cop- nian maybe defied to write a rational subject on 
the one side of it, and a rational predicate of that 
subject on the other side of it, to connect which shall require 
the addition of any word whatever to the " is," or the substi- 
tution of any other word for it. Furthermore, we may add to 
the word " is " such qualifying terms as will most distinctly 
assert that it is to be understood, literally speaking, without 
metaphor, dropping all symbolical, allegorical, or figurative 
language, and it shall thereby only the more effectually answer 
as proof that in the very cases of dreams, allegories, and para- 
bles, and such like, as are cited to show a departure from its 
literal force, that literal force is actually — if such a thing be 
possible — intensified. "Is" is the great transmitter of the 
figurative into the literal. 



Seven ears 
The leaven of the Pharisees 
■> The two women 
The seed 



is, are 

dropping symbol 
" allegory 

" figure 

literally speaking 



seven years. 

hypocrisy. 

the two covenants. 

the word. 



REDTTCTIO AD ABSTJRDUM. 699 

The " is " is just as literal in a metaphor as in the plainest 
and most prosaic sentence. Those who deny this show that 
they do not see the real point. The seven ears literally are 
seven years, though the seven ears are not literal ears, but 
dream-ears. If they were literal ears, they could not be years. 
The leaven of the Pharisees literally is hypocrisy, but the leaven 
of the Pharisees is not literal leaven ; if it were, it could not be 
hypocrisy. The two women literally are the two covenants, 
but the two women are not literal women, but allegorical 
women. As natural women they could not be covenants. The 
seed literally is the word, but the seed is not literal seed, other- 
wise it could not be the word — it is Gospel-seed. E"ow, in the 
case of metaphorical leaven, seed or bread, there is a metaphor 
to drop, but in the case of literal leaven, seed, or bread, there 
is no metaphor to drop ; hence seven natural ears of corn can- 
not be seven years, nor can wheat or rye be the word, nor 
baker's bread be Christ's body. " This is My body " can mean 
but one thing, so far as the is is involved : This literally is My 
body. If there is a metaphor, it must lie in the word " body." 
Is it Christ's literal body which is meant? If the body which 
is given for us be Christ's literal body, then the sentence 
can mean only one thing : This literally is My literal body. 
When we say " the " Church is Christ's body, we mean that 
the Church literally is Christ's body — literally is that which 
is called Christ's body by the apostle. Then the question, 
Is there a metaphor? means, Is literal body meant? The 
answer here is, No ; it is the assembly of believers in Christ. 
If the apostle had written, The Church is the body of Christ 
which was crucified, he would have written nonsense. Why ? 

It seems incredible that on a basis so slight should have 
rested the opposition of millions, for centuries, to the doctrine 
of the Church. The whole thing is capable of a reductio ad 
absurdum. If " is " means " is a symbol of," then Reductio ad ab- 
the right way for our Lord to have announced surd um. 
the doctrine of a true presence would have been to say: " This 
is not My body ; " which would mean, " This is not a symbol 
of My body," the inference, of course, being that as it is not a 
symbol of the body, it is the body itself. On this style of 



700 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

interpretation, we are to go through the New Testament, and 
whatever it asserts " is," we are to declare is not, but is only a 
symbol ; and whatever it asserts is not, we are to declare is not 
a symbol, and therefore the reality. God is not a Spirit, but 
is the symbol of a Spirit ; and they be no symbols of gods which 
are made with hands, and are, of consequence, real gods. God 
hath chosen things which are not symbols to bring to naught 
things that are symbols — that is, He has chosen the things 
that are, to bring to nothing the things that ai;e nothing 
already. glorious interpretation ! throwing into the shade 
the idea of the sceptic who wished to take all the " nots " out 
of the Commandments, and put them into the Creed — the 
matchless canon which covers all speech — the simple canon : 
whatever is, is not, and whatever is not, is. 

"Naught is everything, and everything is naught." 

As around the words of our Lord, uttered by His own lips, 
or breathed into His apostles by His Spirit, the controversy has 
gathered, so in those words alone can the solution of their own 
mystery be found. The words themselves are a perfect rule of 
faith, and if they have not brought the whole Church to a 
unity, it is because not all have studied them enough in the 
right spirit. God the Holy Ghost, in making a revelation to 
man by language, of necessity subjected His own words to the 
how the con- l aws of language ; and if the whole nominal Church 
troversy is to be of Christ ever agrees in the doctrine of the Eucha- 
rist, the agreement will be reached under the ordi- 
nary aid of the Spirit, by the right application of the laws of 
language to the inspired words. The most vital question in 
the controversy is, indeed, one to which even now the Eastern 
Church, the unreformed Western Church, and the purified 
Church of the West — the Lutheran Church — return the same 
answer. The doctrine of the objective presence of the body 
and blood of Christ in the Supper is the faith of a vast major- 
ity in Christendom now, as it has been from the beginning ; 
and mischievous as is the error of transubstantiation, it still 
leaves the foundation of the Eucharistic mystery undestroyed, 
while the rationalistic opposition destroys the foundation itself. 



GRAMMATICAL AND RHETORICAL FIGURES. 701 

But rationalism itself cannot, without doing violence to the 
acknowledged ordinary laws of language, read into the words 
of the Supper a metaphorical sense. Handle these words of 
our Lord as boldly, construe them from as low a level as those 
of ordinary men, still no metaphor can be found in them. This 
assertion we hope to prove by a careful investigation of the 
fundamental principles of metaphor, which we shall reduce to 
thetical statements, and endeavor to illustrate. We shall try 
to present the rhetoric of the metaphor in the relation it bears 
to its logic. 

I. The metaphor belongs, according to a distinction made by 
some writers, to the rhetorical figure, as distinguished from the 
grammatical figure. The distinguishing difference between the 
rhetorical figure and the grammatical is that the rhetorical is 
based upon an ideal relation, the grammatical upon a real one, 
or what is believed to be such. To say, He keeps LGraramatica i 
a good table, this purse is gold, this cup is coffee, and Rhetorical 
this bottle is wine, is to use a grammatical figure ; 
for the relation of the subject to the predicate is that of real 
conveyance. There is a real purse and real gold, a real cup 
and real coffee, a real bottle and real wine ; and the figure turns 
simply upon the identification of the thing conveying with the 
thing conveyed, both being real, and the thing conveyed being 
communicated in some real respect by means of the thing 
conveying. 

Again, we say of particular books of the Bible : This book is 
Isaiah, this book is John. This is a grammatical figure, for 
the relation of authorship is real on which the identification 
rests. There is a real book, written by a real Isaiah, a real 
John, and hence we give the name of the author to his work. 
So we say: Here is my Milton, take down that Shakspeare, 
my Burke is in twelve volumes, I have read Homer through ; 
or of pictures : This is a Raphael, this is a Salvator Rosa, this 
is a copy from Titian, this is a Canova. Is your Madonna a 
Murillo or a Michael Angelo? All these are grammatical 
figures, for they imply a real relation between the author or 
painter who produces and the book, or work of art, produced. 

Again, we say : His pen is able, his pencil is artistic ; mean- 



702 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ing that the writing, of which the pen is the instrument, the 
picture which is painted by the pencil, have these qualities. 

Again, we say of a portrait or a statue : This picture is Wash- 
ington, this statue is Napoleon. The figure is grammatical, 
for the identification is based upon a real likeness. We can 
say, This picture is meant for Washington ; but it is not Wash- 
ington — it is no more Washington than it is any other man, 
that is, the identification lacks the reality of likeness. 

Again, we say : His brain is clear, his hand is ready ; because 
of a real relation between the thought and its organ, the brain 
— the energy and its organ, the hand. 

There are two kinds of figures which may be called gram- 
matical. The one is Metonomy, based upon a real relation 
between cause and effect, or of subject and adjunct ; the second, 
Synecdoche, based upon a real relation of the whole and its 
parts, or of the genus and its species. The question here is 
not whether the words of the Supper contain a grammatical 
figure, but whether they contain a rhetorical one — not whether 
there is in them a metonomy, or a synecdoche, but whether 
there is in them a metaphor ? 

II. Rhetorical figurative expressions, uuder whatever part 
of speech they are couched, or however modified in form, pre- 
suppose a starting proposition which may, ordinarily, be easily 

ii Metaphors reduced to a noun subject, connected by the copula 
reduced to propo- "is" with a noun predicate. The word of God is 
sharp, cutting to the dividing asunder of soul and 
spirit, implies : God's word is a sword. Man flourishes in the 
morning, in the evening he is cut down, and withereth : Man is 
a flower. The righteous grows in majesty, his roots spread 
forth by the river of life, and his fruits fail not : The righteous 
man is a tree. To this simplest form the words of the Institu- 
tion are reduced, if they are metaphorical : This (bread) is My 
body. 

III. In a metaphor, in the form of a noun subject, connected 
in. Metaphor ^J tne substantive copula with a noun predicate, 

always in the the metaphor always lies in the predicate, never in 

predicate. .. n . 

the subject. 
1. This is so clear in the ordinary arrangement of metaphori- 



METAPHOR ALWAYS IN THE PREDICATE. 703 



Copula. 


Nc 


M7i Predicate 


is 




a sword. 


a 




grass. 


u 




a fox. 


u 


, 


a leech. 


u 




a hyena. 



cal propositions of this class, in which the subject comes first, 
that no one can dispute it. We will present a few illustrations 
in a 

TABULAR VIEW. 

Noun Subject. 

God's word 

All flesh 

Herod 

The usurer 

The slanderer of the dead 

In all these propositions, in which the simple and usual form 
of the metaphor is presented, it will not be denied that the 
metaphor lies in the predicate. 

2. The principle holds equally good — though an unculti- 
vated reader may not, perhaps, as instantly and readily see it 
— in the inverted arrangement of poetical style, in which the 
predicate comes first : as, for example, if we say : A sword — 
is God's word ; grass — is all flesh ; a fox — is Herod, the sub- 
ject and predicate are precisely the same as before. It is still 
God's word that is the sword, not the sword that is God's 
word, and so with the others. There is no new proposition ; 
there is a mere change in the order of the old one. 

3. The principle holds good — though it requires yet a little 
more reflection to see it — when the words which expressed 
subject and predicate recur in an inverted order, with a new 
proposition as the result. For example, in the sentence, " Love 
is heaven, and heaven is love," there are, undoubtedly, two 
propositions, — not one proposition with two arrangements, as in 
the examples under 2. " Love " has, under one genus, two 
specific senses in both propositions, and in the first, heaven is 
the predicate, and means exquisite happiness, and in the second 
it is the subject, and means the estate of angels and glorified 
men. The first proposition means that love, such as is felt by 
our race for each other, is exquisite happiness ; the other means 
that the heavenly estate of angels and the glorified is heaven, 
indeed, because of the love they there cherish and the love 
they there receive. 



704 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

4. The principle holds good, even in a case in which we seem 
to assert that the predicate ought to he the subject — the sub- 
ject the predicate. " You say, the slanderer is a serpent ; nay, 
rather say the serpent is a slanderer." Here, undoubtedly, 
there are two propositions, not a change of order in one proposi- 
tion. In the first, slanderer is the subject, and is literal, ser- 
pent is the predicate, and is metaphorical ; in the second, ser- 
pent is the subject, and is literal, and slanderer, the predicate, 
is metaphorical, precisely as our rule asserts. The force of the 
change turns on the thought : You speak of the serpent as that 
whose venom supplies the metaphor which intensifies our sense 
of the venom of the slanderer ; but, in fact, the venom of the 
slanderer is that terrible thing which intensifies our sense of 
the venom of the serpent. Such examples, then, do not con- 
tradict the rule, but are very striking evidences of its truth. 

5. The inflexible character of this rule is shown by the fact 
that if the noun which was the metaphorical predicate be actu- 
ally made the subject of a proposition, the instant result is non- 
sense. Thus : My flesh is bread, has a clear sense ; Bread is 
my flesh, if it be a mere inversion of order, with the subject 
and predicate unchanged, has the same sense, a little less clear 
and popular in the expression ; but, Bread is my flesh, if bread 
be the true subject, is nonsense. Here applies what Kahnis 
has so miserably misapplied, in his argument on the Supper : 
Bread, as such, cannot be the flesh of Christ ; and in metaphor, 
because the flesh of Christ is bread, it is impossible that bread 
should be the flesh of Christ. 

We can say that a modest girl is a violet, but not that a 
violet is a modest girl ; a feeble man is a bulrush, but a bulrush 
is not a feeble man ; a politician is an eel, but an eel is not a 
politician ; truth is a lamp, but a lamp is not truth ; God is a 
rock, but a rock is not God ; the Devil is a lion, but a lion is 
not the Devil ; the promises are manna, but manna is not the 
promises ; Christ is a lamb, but a lamb is not Christ ; a gay 
woman is a butterfly, but a butterfly is not a gay woman ; a 
proud man is a peacock, but a peacock is not a proud man ; 
a church rebuilt is a phoenix, but a phoenix is not a rebuilt 



METAPHOR ALWAYS IN THE PREDICATE. 705 

church ; a drunkard is a perfect fish, but a perfect fish is not a 
drunkard. 

From all this it follows irresistibly that if there be a meta- 
phor in the words of the Supper, it lies in the noun " body" 
which is the confessed predicate. The friends of the metaphor 
are compelled by the laws of language to maintain the proposi- 
tion : This literal bread literally is something which is meta- 
phorically styled the " body of Christ which is given for us." 
It is impossible that the proposition should be : The body of 
Christ which is given for us is something which is metaphori- 
cally styled, This bread : first, because they themselves declare 
that the This bread is literally, not metaphorically, so styled ; 
and second, if it were not so, because bread is the subject, and 
cannot involve the metaphor, body is the predicate, and must 
involve the metaphor, if there be one. So (Ecolampadius con- 
tended at the beginning, and so Kahnis contends now. The 
latest opposition to the true view grants that the received argu- 
ment on its own side has, for nearly three centuries, rested on 
a palpable fallacy. Kahnis picks up what Zwingli threw away, 
and ends where (Ecolampadius begun. So far as this one point 
is concerned, to wit, that if there be a metaphor it must lie in 
the predicate, (Ecolampadius and Kahnis are right — so far 
Luther agreed with (Ecolampadius, and Zwingli differed from 
them both. Zwingli deserved the severest terms applied to 
him by Luther, for failing, in so unscholarly a manner, to see 
so obvious a point, and the long line of Zwingli's followers 
ought to be held accountable before the judgment seat of all 
earnest theological investigators of every school, for the sloth- 
ful manner in which they acquiesced in so palpable an error. 
Right or wrong in itself, the current Zwinglianism rests on an 
assumption which is demonstrably false and preposterous. 

IV. The Subject in a metaphor is always the primary ob- 
ject of thought: it is that /or which the -predicate and copula 
are brought in.* " Christ is the morning star : " Christ, the 

* " The result which a spoken trope produces in the mind of the hearer is an 
image of the primary object under the change of aspect caused by its being 
viewed from the side of the secondary object; and the emotion which is excited 
is consequent on this step." Spalding: Rhetoric, Enc. Brit, xix., 132. 
45 



706 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

subject, is the primary object, and only to mark his majesty is 
the predicate, " morning star," brought in at all. If the words 
of the Institution are metaphorical, the " bread," as the sub- 
ject, is the 'primary object, and the words are uttered for the 
sake of telling us what the bread is, and the body is brought 
in in a secondary way, to clear up the perception of the charac- 
ter of the bread. The body and blood are brought into the 
Supper for the bread and wine's sake, not the bread and wine 
for the sake of the body and blood. 

V. This principle involves also that the primary object in a 
metaphorical proposition is always the subject. In the ordi- 
nary construction of sentences the subject comes first, the pre- 
dicate last. But on this principle the inverted order will not 
obscure to us a perception of the real subject. " An open sepul- 
chre is their throat, " (Rom. iii. 18) : throat is the subject, 
and in Luther's Version, and the King James', is put first. 
" The head of every man is Christ, the head of the woman is 
the man, the head of Christ is God," (1 Cor. xi. 3). Christ, 
man, God, are the subjects in the three propositions. In Lu- 
ther's Version they come first. " He that soweth the good 
seed is the Son of man." Subject : Son of man. " The field 
is the world: " " world " is the subject ; and so through that 
passage (Matt. xiii. 37-40) the devil is the enemy, the end of 
the world is the harvest, the angels are the reapers. The pre- 
dicate is placed before the subject, in the explanation of a para- 
ble, because the object of the explanation is to show how those 
predicates already mentioned fit the subject, which now first 
comes into expression. A parable rests on a metaphorical 
proposition whose subject is not expressed. 

If the words of the Institution be metaphorical, and if the 
primary object in it be the body and blood of Christ, they must, 
of necessity, be the subject of the proposition. Now they are 
the primary object, but they are not the subject. Therefore 
the words are not metaphorical. As the subject in the words 
is expressed, they are not of the nature of a parable. 

VI. In a metaphor the subject, considered in itself, is related 
to the predicate, considered as metaphorical — as a whole is 
related to a part, or the greater to the less ; the subject expresses 



METAPHOR. 707 

the whole thing, the metaphorical predicate limits the mind to 
one part or aspect, either specific or generic, of that whole. 
" Christ is a sun." Here Christ, the subject, expresses the 
whole being, Christ, and after it might follow a statement of 
everything that Christ is: the predicate* limits the mind to the 
one aspect of that whole — Christ as the source of heavenly 
illumination, that is, to a part of what He is. And this holds 
good even when the predicate, in itself, as literal, is greater 
than the subject ; as, for example, the sentence : " My lover is 
my God." Here still, lover, in itself, expresses everything that 
a lover is, while the term " my God," as metaphorical, expresses 
simply one part or aspect of the emotion by which he stands 
related to one person. 

If the Eucharistic proposition be metaphorical, the bread, 
as a whole, is the subject. The metaphorical predicate, the 
body, limits the mind to this bread in one aspect. To what 
aspect of bread is bread limited by calling it the " body of 
Christ " ? The bread is a whole, the body a part. What 
part ? The bread is the greater, the body the less. In what 
respect ? 

VII. In the resolution of metaphors into literal terms, the 
following principles are worthy of note : 

1. In metaphor, there is a change of the ordinary significa- 
tion of the word. In metaphor, " fox " is changed from its 
ordinary signification of a particular animal, and means a man 
of craftiness ; " rock " means a support and stay ; a u lion " 
means a hero; "Napoleon" means a man of distinguished 
ability and success. But in the Supper there is no change of 
meaning in the words. This means this, bread means bread, 
and body means body. 

2. This change of ordinary signification is based on some 
similitude, or analogy, between the thing named in the new 
term and the thing to which that new term is applied. Herod 
is a fox, because an analogy to his craftiness is found in the 
cunning of the fox. It is not the man, as a man, with whom 
the animal, as an animal, is compared, but it is alone craftiness 
in the animal which is compared with craftiness in the man. 
Our God is a rock, because the mind traces an ideal resem- 



708 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

blance between the physical firmness of a rock and the moral 
firmness of God. Now if there be a metaphor in the Supper, 
it must be based upon some ideal similitude between bread and 
Christ's body. The bread is called Christ's body because there 
is some respect in whi«h that bread resembles the body. But 
the theory which accepts the metaphor makes the body resem- 
ble the bread, which is to subvert the metaphor. It is not the 
fox that is Herod, the rock that is God, nor the body that is 
bread ; but Herod is the fox, God is the rock, and the bread is 
the body. 

3. In metaphor, the similitude is always ideal, either essen- 
tially or in the mode of regarding it. When this similitude 
is a real one, both in essence and degree, there is no metaphor ; 
and hence a real similitude is expressed in different terms from 
a metaphorical similitude. We say, A cat is like a tiger, be- 
cause of certain points of real physical likeness. There is like- 
ness, but no metaphor. We say, This cat is a tiger, she is so 
fierce. Here there is metaphor ; for though there is a real 
likeness between a cat and tiger, and the fierceness of both, 
yet it is the fierceness of the tiger, as idealized, that is imputed 
to the cat. Or we may again say, This cat is like a tiger ; but 
if we wish to guard against the misconception that it is a real 
similitude between the whole subject and the whole predicate, 
we mean, we have to add " in fierceness." " Hegel is like Na- 
poleon " might mean that he bore a real resemblance, physical 
or otherwise, to him ; " Hegel is a Napoleon " is open to no such 
misunderstanding. "The bread is like the body of Christ" 
may mean, grammatically, as well that there is a real likeness 
as an ideal one. Hence, to clear the phrase with the resolution 
proposed, it would be necessary to add to the words : " This 
bread is like the body of Christ " some such phrase as " in nu- 
tritiveness," or whatever may be assumed to be the matter of 
analogy. 

4. Hence it is a clumsy and inadequate mode of resolving a 
metaphor simply to substitute " is like " for " is," because it 
leaves it an unsettled question whether the likeness is real or 
metaphorical. It both weakens and obscures the thought. If 
for " John the Baptist is Elijah " we substitute "is like Elijah," 



METAPHOR. 709 

it may mean like him in looks, or like him in various unde- 
fined respects, and the sentence is at once robbed of vigor and 
clearness. If, to make it clear, we add " in the analogies of the 
spirit distinctive of Elijah," it is not more clear, and is far less 
strong than just as it stood : " John is Elijah." If the words 
of the Supper be metaphorical, their obvious force is weakened 
not strengthened, obscured not cleared, by substituting " is like " 
for " is." But those who contend for the metaphorical sense 
think their cause strengthened by this substitution. If this be 
so, there can be no metaphor. They are met by the horns of 
a dilemma. If " is like " cannot be inserted with advantage to 
clearness, then, in the admission of their own argument hith- 
erto, there can be no metaphor ; if " is like " can be inserted 
with advantage to the sense, then, as we have just shown, 
there can be no metaphor. 

5. Furthermore, while in the case of a naked, unqualified, 
metaphorical noun in the predicate " is like " may merely 
weaken the sense, in the case of a metaphorical noun qualified 
by terms which link it with higher associations " is like " 
destroys the sense. We may say : God is a rock, and then 
God is like a rock ; but if we say, God is the rock of our salva- 
tion, we cannot interpret : God is like the rock of our salvation. 
The Church is the body of Christ ; the Church is like the body 
of Christ ; but not the Church is like the mystical body of 
Christ. If we could say : Bread is body, and, consequently, 
Bread is like body, it would not follow that we could say : 
Bread is like the body of Jesus Christ which was given for the 
remission of sins. 

6. The resolution of a metaphor, by making " is like " the 
copula, weakens it, at best, but the term " signify " does not 
resolve the metaphor at all. Where " signify " can be substi- 
tuted as a copula for " is," there is no metaphor. Leo (the 
word) signifies a lion, that is, leo in one language and lion in 
another, are verbal signs of the same thing, but Achilles does 
not signify a lion. The seed of the parable is ideal seed, not 
natural ; it does not signify the word, but that seed is the word, 
and the word is that seed. Natural seed may be used as the 
symbol of gospel seed, that is, of the. parable seed ; but the para- 



710 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ble seed is not the symbol of anything else, but is itself the 
thing symbolized by the' natural seed — it is the word. If we 
could say, as in a parable: This bread signifies the body of 
Christ, it would mean that real bread is the symbol of ideal 
bread, to wit, the communion bread, and that the thing ideal- 
ized in the term communion bread is not the symbol, but the 
thing symbolized, and is identical with the body. It is a strik- 
ing illustration of the way in which the extremes of exegetical 
absurdity meet, that to make a parallel between the language 
of the Supper and of a parable, would end practically in an 
error akin to transubstantiation. It would imply the identity 
of the thing expressed ideally in the word bread, with the 
thing expressed literally in the word body. It would leave, as 
the only literal elements in the Supper, body and blood — no 
real bread, no real cup ; just as in the parable of the sower, the 
only literal elements left are the Son of man, the word, the 
world, the hearers. 

7. Nothing is, in itself, metaphorical or symbolical. A lamb 
as a lamb, a lion as a lion, is not a symbol. Neither the real 
lion, nor the real lamb, is symbolical. It is the ideal lion or 
lamb that is symbolical. The mind makes it so. The mind 
recognizes and accepts the analogy on which the metaphor or 
symbol rests, and thus makes the symbol. Hence the bread, 
as such, can be no more a symbol of the body than it can be the 
body itself. Bread, as bread, is no symbol, but a literal reality. 
The moment Ave fix the fact that a piece of bread is to be re- 
garded as a piece of bread, apart from the general analogies of 
all bread, we entirely exclude that bread from any possible rela- 
tion to the symbol or metaphor. Christ could say, The bread 
which I will give is My flesh, but not, the baker's bread, the 
wheat bread, which I will give, is My flesh. 
. 8. A symbolical dream and a parable differ essentially only in 
the manner in which they are brought before the mind. The 
dream is a parable pictured in sleep, and the parable is a sym- 
bolic dream stated in words. Suppose, with no antecedent 
dream, Joseph to have been inspired to say : The kingdom of 
Egypt is like unto seven ears of corn, etc., we would have, by 
a mere change of the manner of presentation, a parable ; or if 



METAPHOR. 711 

the Son of God, with the same intent as in a parable, had, in 
a dream, presented to the minds of the apostles a man going 
forth to sow, or fishermen casting a net, there would have been 
a symbolic dream. Peter's vision can be shaped as a parable: 
The kingdom of heaven is like to a great sheet, which was let 
down, etc. In the explanation of a dream or parable, the subject, 
though it may come last in the order of words, is the real, literal 
thing which the dream or parable is meant to set forth. The 
seven years are the subject of the dream's explanation ; the 
kingdom of heaven, and the Son of man, are the subject of the 
explanation of the parable, and what God hath cleansed is the 
subject of Peter's vision. In the explanation of dream and par- 
able the subject is literal, and the predicate 'purely ideal ; not a 
literal thing symbolizing, but an ideal thing symbolized. In 
the Supper, the subject is literal, and the predicate is literal. 
There is no dream-bread or parable-bread, no dream-body or 
parable-body. No matter how you arrange subject and predi- 
cate in it, you can find no parallel with the dream or parable. 
9. As in metaphor the figure turns upon the predicate con- 
sidered not in its natural character, but only as an ideal with a 
particular quality made prominent, the same noun predicate 
may be used with very different senses. Either the terms or 
associations will show, therefore, in every case, what quality in 
the predicate is the basis of a good metaphor. Achilles is a 
lion, for he is brave ; the Devil is a lion, for he destroys ; Christ 
is a lion, for He is majestic. Dan shall be a serpent in the way, 
for he shall be sagacious in strategy and resistless in attack ; 
the Devil is a serpent, for he is the sagacious perverter of men 
— he is that "old serpent" which seduced Eve. Now, as a 
metaphorical predicate, the body of Christ fails to exhibit the 
particular quality in which the metaphor lies. It explains 
nothing, but needs explanation. What quality of Christ's 
body is imputed by metaphor to the bread ? The most con- 
flicting replies have been made to the question by those who 
insist that there is a metaphor. One says it is the quality of 
nourishment; Christ's body nourishes, therefore bread is called 
by its name. Another says : Christ's body is broken, and, as 
the bread is broken, it is called the body ; and so on through a 



712 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

range of conjectures ever increasing, and destined to increase, 
because the solution, in this direction, rests upon lawless con- 
jecture — it gets no light from the text, and its sole limit is 
that of the ingenuity of man. 

10. The name in the predicate in the metaphor is given to 
the subject, so that we can continue to conceive of the subject 
in all the aspects suggested by the name of the predicate within 
the whole range of the ideal analogy. Any adjective or verb 
that suits the predicate can so far be applied to the subject. 
The righteous man is a tree ; God has planted that tree by the 
river of water ; his leaf is ever green ; his fruit is more and more 
abundant ; his root is struck more and more firmly into the soil ; 
if his branches are lopped off, it is to insure greater vigor ; his 
shelter is pleasant to those who rest beneath it. Now give 
the name of the predicate, " body," to the subject, " bread," 
and attempt to carry out the figure in this way — apply to 
the bread adjectives and verbs derived from the body — and 
the impossibility of a metaphor is at once apparent. We can 
neither say, with a wider range, This bread is Christ's body, 
and has suffered for us, was crucified for us, has ascended to 
heaven; nor, with a narrower range, This bread is Christ's 
body, and nourishes us with heavenly strength — he that eats 
of it shall live forever — Christ gave this bread for the life of 
the world. Take John vi., where there is a metaphor under- 
lying, in which Christ's flesh is the subject and literal, in 
which bread is the predicate and metaphorical, and contrast 
it with the words of the Supper, where the theory in question 
admits that bread is the subject and literal, and maintains that 
body, the predicate, is metaphorical. Now take Christ's flesh 
as bread, and see how the terms literally appropriate to bread 
adapt themselves metaphorically to the flesh ; then go to the 
Supper, take bread as Christ's body, and see whether the terms 
literally appropriate to Christ's body adapt themselves meta- 
phorically to the bread, and you cannot fail to see that there 
can be no metaphor here. 

11. All figures properly rhetorical rise upon the common root 
of the metaphor, and are reducible ultimately to metaphorical 
propositions, that is, to propositions in which there is a subject 



METAPHOR. 713 

with a metaphorical predicate, capable, for the most part, of 
being linked to it by the substantive copula " is." 

" Though round his breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
Eternal sunshine settles on his head." 

The good man is a mountain. " If he dare to light on me, 
I shall brush him off:" he is an insect. "The state is tossed 
on the waves of civil strife:" the state is a ship. "The sun- 
shine of truth will scatter those falsehoods:" truth is a sun; 
falsehood is a cloud. "The diapason closing full in man:" 
nature is an instrument of music ; man is the completion of 
nature's music. " From the egg to the apple, life is insipid :" 
life is a banquet. Hence all metaphorical language is but the 
evolution of the primary idea. It results from the ideal iden- 
tification of the subject and predicate throughout, so far as that 
identification is primarily involved in the simple proposition. 

Hence, after directly connecting the subject in a metaphorical 
proposition with its predicate, we can go on to apply to the 
subject the qualities of the predicate. The good man is a 
mountain, and though clouds are about his breast, eternal sun- 
shine is on his head. The officious intermeddler is an insect, 
and if he dare to light on me, I will brush him off. The state 
is a ship, and is tossed on the waves of civil strife. Can we 
say, This bread is my body, and is given for you ; this wine is 
my blood, and has been shed for many for the remission of 
sins ? If we cannot, there is no metaphor. 

12. In didactic metaphors, whose object is not so much to 
ornament as to make clear and vivify the meaning to the sim- 
ple learner, predicates are chosen whose range of qualities is 
smallest, in fact, if possible, confined to one quality. The 
favorite popular metaphors turn very much upon the disposi- 
tion to confine, as nearly as possible, the analogy to a single 
quality in a single predicate. A bee and a wasp both sting, 
yet if we say of a woman, " She is a bee," the first impression 
made is that she is industrious ; if we say, " She is a wasp," 
the hearer supposes we attribute ill-temper to her. A bee is as 
provident as an ant, but when we wish to find an image of 
providence, we take the ant. A hare is both swift and timid, 



714 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

yet, when we call a man a hare, every one at once supposes us 
.to mean that he is timid. An elephant is sagacious as well as 
ponderous, but when we say that a man is an elephant, we are 
not thought to compliment his sagacity, but to allude to his 
hugeness of body. The torch was once an image of illumina- 
tion, now it is an image of destruction. We speak of the lamp 
of knowledge, but of the torch of discord. The spider has 
many points of metaphor, but in popular language his image is 
narrowed to the mode in which he ensnares his prey. The ass 
has had a varied fortune in metaphor. Homer compares his 
hero to an ass ; yet, from being the image of enduring bravery, 
of strength, of contentment, of frugality, of meekness under 
wrong, the ass has come to be almost exclusively the image of 
stupidity. The dog once went into metaphor on the strength 
of his worst points ; he now generally goes in on his best. Once 
the question was put : Is thy servant a dog, that he should do 
this thing ? Now institutions of trust paint upon their sign the 
dog, who, as he watches the chest, is an image of the institu- 
tion in the incorruptible fidelity it claims for itself. If there 
be a didactic metaphor in the Lord's Supper — and such it 
would be most likely to be if there were any — it would select 
the body of Christ as the predicate, because of one familiar qual- 
ity which enabled it, more than any other, to make clear and 
vivify the meaning of the bread. Will any one pretend that 
such is the case ? 

13. In a metaphor the adjectives and verbs appropriate to 
the predicate are applied to the subject. The adjectives and 
verbs appropriate to the subject in a metaphor cannot be applied 
to the predicate. " The child is a flower ; it opens its petals to 
the dawning sun ; it strikes its root; into the green earth ; it is 
tender, sweet, fragile." We cannot correctly apply in this 
same metaphor any of the qualities of the child to the flower, 
or mingle the attributes of the subject with those of the pre- 
dicate. We can simply and solely consider the subject under 
the metaphorical conditions of the predicate. We cannot say : 
u The child is a flower ; it strikes out its roots in the nursery ; 
that flower once had a father and mother, but, alas I the chill 
wind came, and now the flower is an orphan." If, therefore, 



METAPHOR. 715 

there were any warrant for the textual reading on which is 
based the interpretation : " This broken bread is my broken 
body," it would imply that the body is metaphorically broken, 
and that because the predicate body is identical in the meta- 
phor with the bread, we can say that the bread is broken. 
But it is granted by all that the breaking of the bread is literal. 
It is said to be broken, because, and only because, it is broken. 
Hence the a 'priori presumption is entirely in accord with the 
external evidence that the true reading of 1 Cor. xi. 24, does 
not embrace the word "broken." If the word there were 
genuine, there can be no metaphorical relation between the 
breaking of the bread and the breaking of the body ; but if 
there were, it would produce an idea exactly the reverse of 
that which the advocates of the metaphor desire. They wish 
the breaking of the bread to figure the breaking of the body, 
but, in fact, the breaking of the body would figure the break- 
ing of the bread. If I say : " Hope is a broken reed," it is the 
"broken " of the predicate which we refer to the subject, not 
the reverse. It is not that hope is broken, and, therefore, we 
make it the image of a, broken reed ; but it is the reed that is 
broken, and we, therefore, make it the image of the broken 
hope. The words are not : My body is this broken bread, but 
(following the reading) : This ( bread) is my broken body. 

14. A verbal symbol is simply a metaphorical predicate, 
which is fixed in one determinate sense by general agreement 
and understanding. It must conform to all the laws of meta- 
phor. When the symbolic idea of the verbal symbol is em- 
bodied in a representation, or associated with a natural object, 
apparent to the senses, a symbol proper is the result. Thus, 
when, for the first time, it was said : " The brave man is a lion," 
there was but a metaphor. When the authority derived from 
a general use and agreement made the lion, by preeminence, 
and exclusively, the metaphorical representative of courage, 
the lion became the symbol of courage ; and the carved or 
painted lion becomes the symbol proper of courage. Before a 
symbol can be assumed in language, there must be presupposed 
a metaphorical predicate, and a fixing of it by general agree- 
ment in one only sense. When there can be no metaphor, 



716 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

there can, a fortiori, be no symbol. When we say : " The 
lamb is the symbol of Christ," it implies, first, that the lamb is 
a metaphorical predicate of all gentle human beings; second, 
that because of the preeminent gentleness of Christ, God has 
authoritatively, in his word, fixed the predicate as descriptive 
of his Son. Hence, when the artist paints the lamb in sa- 
cred symbolism, we at once know he means Christ ; he repre- 
sents the lamb bleeding, it is Christ the Sufferer he means; 
the lamb bears the banner, it is Christ triumphant. 

15. A type is a person or thing divinely foreappointed as the 
symbol of a person or thing not yet revealed. It involves a 
divine metaphor with the subject reserved for a future state- 
ment. The type is related to the antitype as the predicate to 
the subject. The lamb is a symbol of Christ. The paschal 
lamb is a type of Christ. For the same reason, as in the ex- 
planation of the parable and dream, the predicate, in the reso- 
lution of the type, is often placed first. "We can say " Christ 
is our paschal lamb," or "Our paschal lamb is Christ," but in 
either case Christ is the subject. 

16. The descriptive terms we add to a metaphorical noun to 
make its nature apparent must be such as to imply that it is 
metaphorical, not such as would apply to it as literal. Instead 
of saying, " His wit is a dagger," we may enlarge by saying, 
" His wit is the dagger of an assassin ; he plunges into the 
heart of every man who offends him ; " but we cannot say ; 
" His wit is a dagger purchased at Smith's hardware store." 
We do not say: " The law of God is a lamp of brass with a 
cotton wick; " u our life is the flowing river Schuylkill, which 
runs into the Delaware ; " " he was clothed with the mantle 
of humility, made of blue cloth." Bat to the words body and 
blood are added just such terms as suit the literal body and 
blood alone. It was the literal body which was given — the 
literal blood which was shed for us and for many for the remis- 
sion of sins. Contrast the words which in 1 Cor. xi. speak of 
Christ's literal body with those which in chap. xii. speak of 
His metaphorical body, His Church. Take the words : This 
is my body which is for you — guilty of the body and blood of 
the Lord — not discerning the Lord's body — which are found 



"BREAD" METAPHORICALLY USED. 717 

in chap, xi., and lay them side by side with the terms in 
which, in chap, xii., Christ's body, the Church, is spoken of; 
the many members — the foot, the hand, the eye, the ear — now 
ye are the body of Christ and members in particular, — and 
note how striking the difference. And in the Oriental cast of 
thought, far more than in the Western, exists this very ten- 
dency to luxuriate in the details of metaphor. The abstinence 
from anything of the sort in the case of the Supper, which, if 
it be metaphorical at all, involves the metaphor of metaphors, 
is very significant. 

Let us look for a moment longer at the bearing of these 
principles on the Lord's Supper : 

When the word bread is used metaphorically, or with a figu- 
rative allusion, it is a well established emblem of i.«i$ rea d"met- 
food or of nutrition — intellectual, moral or spirit- »pJ»°»caii y «s e j. 
ual. As the fox is the emblem of cunning, the dove of gentle- 
ness, the rock of firmness, so is natural bread the emblem of 
supernatural or spiritual nutriment. The proposition "bread 
is Christ's body," taken figuratively, would make bread the 
literal thing, and Christ's body the emblem of it, and would 
have to mean, " as Christ's body is supernatural or spiritual 
food, so bread is natural bodily food." The proposition, 
" Christ's body is bread," on the other hand, makes Christ's 
body the literal thing, and bread the emblem of it, and would 
mean, " as bread is natural bodily food, so is Christ's body 
supernatural or spiritual food." If it be said, Bread is like 
Christ's body, the question at once arises, In what respect ? 
What is the well-known property of our Lord's body to which 
we find a likeness in bread ? If the reply is, Christ's body is 
saeramentally eaten, and bread is like it, in that it is eaten 
naturally, we would reply : The eating of Christ's body is a 
recondite and imperfectly understood thing, — why, then, do 
you take it as the illustration of something so simple and well 
understood as the eating of bread ? Why illustrate the simple 
by the obscure? Why illustrate it at all? Yet more, how- 
ever, if the reply is, Christ's body is broken, and bread, like it, 
is broken, we would reply, It is not characteristic of bread to 
be broken ; thousands of things equally with it are broken : 



718 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

moreover, Christ's body is not naturally broken, but bread is ; 
hence, instead of illustrating the supernatural by the literal, 
you are illustrating the literal by the supernatural. "What you 
want to fit in with your theory is, that Christ should have 
said, Take, eat, my body is like this bread ; or, the breaking 
of my body is like the breaking of this bread. But on this 
theory he exactly reverses the statement. He does not say, 
My body is this ; but, This is my body. Here, too, is one of 
the sharp and noticeable distinctions between the thought in 
John vi. and the thought in the Lord's Supper. In John vi. 
he says : " My flesh is bread ; my flesh is meat indeed." Here 
he says : " This is my body." If it were lawful to supply the 
word " bread," bread would here be the subject, as it is there 
the predicate. But, whether bread or the breaking of bread 
be considered as that with which the body or breaking of the 
body is to be compared, it would necessarily, to sustain the 
theory of metaphor, or symbol, be the predicate. But it is here 
manifestly the subject, as even the great mass of un-Lutheran 
expositors are forced to admit. But if bread or breaking of 
bread be the subject, it is compared with the body, or breaking 
of the body: that is, Christ is supposed to illustrate the 
natural and familiar action by the remoter and less intelligible 
— which is absurd. 

Schwenckfeld * saw whither this false theory would drive 
him, to wit, that it would suppose that our Saviour, consider- 
ing the eating of his body as the familiar thing, and the eating 
of the bread, the thing that required illustration, which is so 
manifestly false, that, to avoid it, he proposed to write the 
words thus : My body is this bread, to wit, is spiritual bread, 
as this is natural bread. If, now, the critic's view could be 
taken as to the force of " is," to wit, that it means " is like," 
he plunges headlong into the difficulty Schwenckfeld tried in 
vain to escape. Even if there were a metaphor, it would not 
have a parallel in the phrase, " Louis Napoleon is a fox ; " but 
in this: "A fox is Louis Napoleon ; ''that is, a fox is like 
Louis Napoleon ; or, a rock is God ; or, grass is flesh ; or, a 
door is Christ. 

*The same view was maintained at a later period by John Lang. 



THE "BREAKING" OF BREAD, ETC. 719 

Just as plain is it that the phrase " breaking bread," if figu- 
rative, is the well-established emblem not of the violent kill- 
ing of a human being, but of supernatural or spiritual dis- 
tribution or communication. Why is bread broken t In order 
to its being given, taken, and eaten. Hence, when we speak 
figuratively of breaking bread, we mean this : the higher thing, 
of which the bread is the emblem, is given, taken, 

/ J . ' ' II. The " Break- 

and eaten in some sense corresponding with the fig- m g of Bread" as 
ure. Hence, in the Lord's Supper, it is inconceiv- meta P horical - 
able, if the breaking of bread have a figurative reference, that 
this reference should rest on the breaking of bread, not as the 
means of its distribution, in order to be taken and eaten, but on 
the violent tearing of it into pieces, as symbolical of crucifixion. 
If, therefore, the sole connection were, as the critic imagines, 
between breaking the body, the symbol would still contemplate 
the bread which we break as the communication of Christ's body. 
From these indisputable facts, as also from the sacred text, 
it is most clear that, as the " breaking " of the bread m The Break . 
in the Supper was distributive, that is, the natural in s of Bread and 

*■*■ . . the distributive 

means necessary to its distribution or communica- character of the 
tion to the taker and eater of it as natural food, so, Supper " 
by consequence, the breaking of Christ's body, to which it 
would point, would be the communication of that body as 
supernatural food. The analogy is not this : That as bread 
may be considered as figuratively killed by breaking it with 
the hand into small pieces, so was Christ's body literally killed 
by piercing it with the nails and the spear, but is most clearly 
this : That as bread, in order to be naturally taken and eaten, 
must be physically communicated, (to which the natural break- 
ing was necessary,) so the body of our Lord Jesus, in order to 
be sacramentally taken and eaten, must be supernatu rally com- 
municated. 

The critic has said of the " resemblance in the fact that just 
as he had broken the bread, so his body would be IV The 
broken," etc., that this is " the only one stated by "Breaking" of 
Christ himself" in regard to the bread and the t^oTthemlZ 
body. If we look at the sacred text, we find that of our Lor(r8 

-i... . •-!• .,. death. 

the critic is at issue with it on three vital points : 



720 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

1. Our Saviour does not say " would be broken," " would be 
shed," but uses the present participle in both cases : " is broken," 
u is shed." If the critic insists that the present participle has 
a future sense, he is bound to give reason for his departure 
from the letter. Till the critic proves this, he has against him 
the very letter of our Lord's word, testifying that he did not 
compare that 'present breaking of the bread with the future 
breaking of his body. 

2. The sacred text, if we assume that the language is figura- 
tive, gives no warrant for the idea that the breaking of Christ's 
body, and the shedding of his blood, refer as their distinctive 
object to the mode by which his life was terminated, but both 
refer to the impart ation or communication of the body and 
blood, as the applying organs of the redemption wrought 
through them. In other words, they are, in the Lord's Supper, 
contemplated distinctively in their sacramental application, and 
in their sacrificial character only as the sacrificial is to be pre- 
supposed, either in fact or in God's unchanging purposes, as 
the necessary antecedent and ground of the sacramental. Bread 
is broken in order to be communicated, and wine is poured out 
in order to be imparted. If these acts, then, are symbolical as 
regards the body and blood of Christ, they contemplate the 
one as broken, the other as shed, in order to communication 
and impartation ; and then there is a parallel in the words of 
Paul : The cup of blessing, is it not the communion of the blood 
of Christ ; the bread which we break, is it not the communion 
of his body ? 

3. Matthew says our Lord brake the bread, but does not think 

it necessary to record at all that our Lord said, My 

V. None of the J . i 

Evangelists con- body broken — that is, according to the false theory, 
inTofthe^read ne failed to note the on ty resemblance which our 
with the Break- Lord has authorized. Mark is guilty, on the same 
goftheBod 3 . ^Yieory, of the same omission — not a word about 
the breaking of the bread as the point of comparison with the 
breaking of the body. Luke has : He brake it, and gave unto 
them, and said : This is my body which is given for you. Not 
a word about the breaking as a symbol of the crucifixion ; but, 
as if the breaking were merely a necessary part of the com- 



THE "BREAKING" OF BREAD, ETC. 721 

municative act ending in the giving, says : This is my body 
given for you. Is the giving of a piece of bread also an emblem 
of the crucifixion ? Is it not evident that broken and given 
are considered as involving the same idea, and that the force is 
" so broken as to be given " ? Is it not clear that the giving of 
His body is something which Christ himself does ; that there- 
fore the sacramental breaking or communication of it is His 
own act, and that if He symbolizes any acts, it is His own acts, 
and not those of His enemies ? Who does not see, if we assume 
a figure, that the natural bread points to the supernatural 
bread, which He tells us is His body, and that the natural 
method by which the natural bread is communicated points to 
the supernatural method, by which the invisible sacramental 
bread, to wit, Christ's true body is given ? 

If in 1 Cor. xi. 24, we accept the Textus receptus, and read 
" broken for you," the meaning of the word broken is deter- 
mined by the facts already stated. It is to be harmonized with 
St. Luke's "given," and with the omission of Matthew and 
Mark. But the best text sustained by the oldest manuscripts,* is 
without the word, and the editions of the greatest recent critics, 
as for example Lachmann, Tischendorff, and Alford, omit it. 
The attempt, therefore, to show that our Saviour put the 
sole stress on the breaking of the bread, is a com- VI The at _ 
plete failure, as is also the attempt to show that the tempt to make 
breaking contemplates our Saviour's death in its paraiiei^in^the 
mode, and not as the sacrificial pre-requisite, in the Breaking, a fan- 
mind of God, to the sacramental communication. 
The true view is strengthened by the fact that, although the 
three Evangelists say of the blood : " shed for you," not one of 
them speaks, nor does St. Paul speak, of the pouring, or shed- 
ding of wine at all ; which would have been absolutely essential, 
had the breaking partaken, as the critic seems to suppose, of 
this pantomimic character. If Christ had broken the bread to 
symbolize, by that act, the breaking of His body, He must have 
poured the wine to symbolize, by that act, the shedding of His 

* As the Codex Sinaiticus, $$., 4th century; Alexandrinus, A., 5th century; 
Vaticanus, B., 4th century ; Ephraem Syri, C, 5th century. 
46 



722 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

blood. So absolutely necessary to his new theory does Kahnis 
see the shedding of the wine to be, that he goes completely out 
of the sacred record to assume that " the wine which is poured 
out of a large vessel into the chalice is the blood which is shed 
for us." This is not interpreting Scripture, but manufacturing 
it — and the manufactured Scripture directly contradicts the in- 
spired Scripture. It is the cup of blessing which we bless, not 
the cup of wine already poured and consecrated in the Supper, 
not the skin-bottle of pouring which we pour before the Supper, 
which is the communion of the blood of Christ. It is not 
enough for Kahnis to add to St. Paul ; he feels himself forced 
to contradict him. But Kahnis is helpless. If the bread comes 
into the Supper solely to be eaten, and the breaking is but a 
natural mean toward the eating, a mean, which can be used 
either before the Supper or in it ; if the wine comes into the 
Supper solely to be drunken, and the pouring is but a natural 
mean toward the drinking, a mean which can be used before or 
in it, Kahnis's theory of symbol goes by the board. 

On the very word, then, on which the critic builds his whole 
theory, it goes to pieces. It is broken by " broken." Alike what 
the four narratives say, and what they omit, is decisive against 
him — as their words and their omissions strengthen the true 
view, the view of our Church. 

The critic, as we have seen, formally abandons in great stress, 
vii summary i n one important respect, the Zwinglian view of the 
of the false meaning of the word " is " in the Lord's Supper. 
He acknowledges that here it does not mean " sym- 
bolizes, represents." This he does, apparently, to avoid the 
rock on which we showed, and have again shown, that the old 
rationalistic symbolic theory struck and split, as soon as it was 
launched. He concedes that the bread, as such, is not the symbol 
of the body of Christ. So much for Zwinglianism. But, as he 
goes on to admit, there is a solitary point not peculiar to bread, 
in which there is a likeness to a solitary point, connected with 
the history of our Saviour's body, but not peculiar to it. His 
theory really is this : The bread does not here mean bread, but 
the breaking of the bread. The body of Christ does not mean 
His body, but the breaking of His body. The critic, with his 



THE FALSE THEORY CHARACTERIZED. 723 

theory of pronouns, gets the proposition : This bread (touto 
artos) is my body. Then, with his theory of the substantive 
verb, this is made to mean : This bread is like my body ; then, 
with the new theory of metaphor, bread means breaking of 
bread ; body means breaking of body ; and the sacred words 
mean this : This breaking of bread is like the breaking of my 
body broken for you, therefore take this breaking of bread and 
eat it. He abandons the argument on which the faith of our 
Church was originally assailed, and admits the untenableness 
of the philology of the anti-Lutheran rationalism of centuries. 
Strange fallacy, which would make the breaking of anything, 
whatsoever, a title to its being called the Lord's 

' & VIII. The false 

body, which assumes that the bread as such, that theory chamo- 
is, as food, is not the symbol of Christ's body, but tenzecL 
that the breaking of the bread is like the breaking of the body. 
This theory assumes that it would be as proper to affirm that a 
broken paving - stone, or a broken pane of glass, or a broken 
dish, or a broken rope, is Christ's body, as that the bread of 
His supper is ; for the parallel is between breaking and break- 
ing — broken bread and broken body. But if you concede that 
it is between bread and body, then you are drawn to the 
dreaded necessity of the true supernatural eating of the latter 
as the parallel to the true natural eating of the former. How 
pointless, too, opening in the lowest depth of Rationalism itself, 
a lower deep, is it to say that the breaking of bread is like the 
breaking of Christ's body, considering the breaking as the 
means of putting that sacred body to death. Bread is an inani- 
mate thing : how can breaking it be like the putting of a 
human being to death ? Breaking bread is the very symbol of 
quiet and peace. Who would dream of it as an appropriate 
symbol of the most cruel and ignominious death ? Bread is the 
representative food, and, used in metaphor, is the symbol of 
spiritual or supernatural food. The breaking of bread is the 
means to giving it as food, and taking it as food, and as a sym- 
bol, the symbol of giving and taking a higher food. No one 
would dream of the breaking of a piece of bread as the symbol 
of killing a human body ; and if so extraordinary a symbolic use 
of it were made, it would require the most explicit statement, on 



724 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the part of the person so using it, that such was its intent ; and 
when he had made it, the world would be amazed at so lame a 
figure. 

We join issue, then, with this theory, and maintain that if 
there be a figure in the words, the figure must be this: that 
the bread is a figure of the body of Christ, as the true bread — 
and the breaking of that bread, so as to communicate it, a figure 
of the true communication of that body. And thus our Lord 
did not mean, in the word " broken " — if he indeed used it at all 
— to point to the process by which His body was killed, but to 
His body as the bread of life, broken or given to be the nourish- 
ment of the divine life of the believer. If His body be the 
broken bread, it is as the communication of that body of which 
He says : Take, eat ; this is my body given for you. 

Utterly apart from the divine majesty and the plenary out- 
pouring of the great Spirit of his prophetic office upon our 
Lord, it is a degradation to Him as the master of words, — 
Himself the incarnate "Word and revealer of the mind of God, as 
the One who spake as never man spake, whose imagery com- 
bined, as they were never combined in human language, the 
most exquisite simplicity with matchless sublimity and appro- 
priateness, — it is a degradation of our Lord to torture the whole 
drift of His words, so as to make them jejune and pointless, as 
the critic has done. It sounds more like a Jewish taunt, than 
a sober Christian utterance, to say that, as an appropriate re- 
presentation of a living body pierced by nails and spear, our 
Lord selected a loaf of bread, and brake it to pieces, and said : 
This bread is my body — not with allusion to the bread as food 
at all ; not with allusion to the breaking as the great distri- 
butive and communicative act, but simply to the breaking as 
a means of destroying, We do not believe that from the Insti- 
tution of the Supper to this hour the mere act of breaking the 
bread, as such, has vivified to any human creature the sacrificial 
agony and death of our Lord. We have searched the records 
of the ancient Church in vain for such an idea : it is not found 
in any of the Fathers whom we have examined. It is modern, 
forced, and manifestly manufactured for certain doctrinal ends; 
is in conflict with all the laws of human speech ; is insulting to 



TESTIMONY OF THE EARLIEST CHURCH. 725 

our Lord, and is rejected by the best commentators of every 
school, even by some of the ablest Calvinists, Zwinglians, and 
Rationalists themselves. 

The antithesis of the purified Church Catholic in modern 
times is strengthened by the fact that the Church Catholic, 
through its most ancient witnesses, asserts the same antithesis, 
and bases it upon the same doctrine. The Fathers are not 
authorities, but they are witnesses. The force of ,„ . 

' " Testimony of 

their testimony depends very much upon the nature the earliest 
of the thing to which they testify, whether it be Churcb ' 
something in regard to which they had ample opportunities of 
being informed. It depends also upon it's clearness, its har- 
mony with itself and with the testimony of others. The state- 
ments of a witness or of a body of witnesses may carry with 
them a moral force which is irresistible. The testimony of 
the Fathers of the earliest Church in regard to the Lord's 
Supper carries peculiar weight, because, from the nature of the 
case, the meaning of the Lord's Supper must have been asked 
for and determined at once. It is impossible that in the daily 
communion, with which the Church began, and the very fre- 
quent communion with which the Church continued, there 
should be no settlement of the question, What is the essential 
character of this Sacrament ? 

There are those now who think that the permanence of the 
Supper, and the practical fruits of it, are the only points of im- 
portance about it — its essential character may be left out of 
view. But in fact, from the beginning to this hour, it has not 
been possible to see why it should be permanent, or what fruits 
it is meant to have, without understanding what it is. In the 
very nature of the case, therefore, the essential character of the 
Lord's Supper was no matter of remote speculation. It came 
up instantly, and came up constantly. There are no two points 
on which we would expect the witness of the ancient Church 
to be more prompt and decisive than on the two Sacraments, 
Baptism and the Supper, and the fact corresponds with the 
anticipation. On nothing is the testimony of the primitive 
Church more full, more clear, and more decisive, than on Bap- 
tism and the Supper. The testimony begins very early. The 



726 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

first important witness is an Apostolic Father, Ignatius, for 
whom it is claimed that he saw our Lord, and who, beyond 
all dispute, was a pupil of the Apostles. He was consecrated 
pastor of the church of Antioch, by St. Peter, about a. d. 43 ; 
and was put to death as a Christian about a. d. 107. 

The importance of the testimony of the early Church in 
regard to the Lord's Supper has been felt in all the churches. 
Extremists, in the churches most alien in their faith to the tes- 
timony of the Fathers, have tried to torture their declarations, 
if not so as to teach their own peculiar views, yet, at least, so 
as not directly to contradict them. Some, as for example, 
Marheineke, have claimed that the three leading views of 
modern times all have their representatives among the Fathers. 
In presenting the facts of most importance, it may be useful to 
premise the following principles : — First. For the early Fathers, 
Principles to be as mere thinkers, we need feel comparatively little 
p.etin-theFath- regard. It is only where they are competent wit- 
ers - nesses that we attach great value to what they say. 

Second. We propose first to show, not what was the whole line 
of patristic thinking, but what was the original view, so early 
as to create a moral presumption that it was formed not by 
speculative thinking, but on the direct teaching of the Apostles. 
With this as a sort of patristic " Analogy of Faith," we shall 
assume that the later Fathers agree, if their language can be 
fairly harmonized with it. Third. The easiest and simplest 
interpretation of the Fathers is the best ; the less use we make 
of the complex ideas and processes of the scholastic or modern 
theology the better. If we find our faith in the Fathers, we 
must not always expect to find it couched in the terms which 
we should now employ. It is their faith rather than their the- 
ology we are seeking ; and we should compare our faith with 
their faith rather than our dogmatics with theirs. Systematic 
thinking and nicely balanced expression are the growth of 
ages in the Church. We must not suppose that the faith of 
the Church is not found in a particular writer, because we miss 
many of its now current phrases. No existing system of the- 
ology, and no dogmatic statement of a single distinctive Chris- 
tian doctrine, can find its absolute fac-simile in form in the writ- 



IGNATIUS. 727 

ings of the Christian Fathers — not the doctrine of the Trinity, 
not the doctrine of Sin, not the doctrine of the person of 
Christ, in a word, not any doctrine. The oak of a thousand 
years is not a fac-simile of itself at a hundred years ; yet less a 
fac-simile of the acorn from which it grew. Yet the oak is but 
the acorn developed, its growth is its history ; and if the bond 
with its past be broken anywhere the oak dies. Fourth. That 
interpretation, all other things being equal, is best which most 
naturally harmonizes all the sayings of a particular Father with 
each other, or all the sayings of all the Fathers with each other. 
"We have no right to assume a contradiction in either case, 
where a harmony is fairly possible. Fifth. That is the best 
interpretation of the past which most naturally accounts for 
the sequel. When a doctrine has taken an indubitable shape, 
or even has undergone a demonstrable perversion and abuse, 
we are to ask what supposition in regard to the precedent 
doctrine best solves the actual development or the actual 
abuse. Sixth. We reach the faith of a Father by the general 
drift of his statements, although seeming, or even real con- 
tradictions with that general drift are to be found in his 
writings. No man, perhaps, is perfectly self- consistent. The 
reader may discover inconsistencies which the writer himself 
has not noticed. The mass of mankind hold very sincerely 
views which really involve a conflict. But in the ancient 
Church, with the vast influx of men of every school of philoso- 
phy and of every form of religious education — with the fer- 
ment of the wonderful original elements which. Christianity 
brought into human thought — with Christian science hardly 
yet in existence, we would expect many discrepancies, especially 
where dogmatic accuracy is required. 

THE TESTIMONY OF ST. IGNATIUS. 

There are three passages in St. Ignatius confessedly bearing 
upon the Lord's Supper. The first is from the L j gn atius, a.d. 
Epistle to the Smyrnians : "They (the Docetse, 43 - 107 - 
who denied that our Lord had a true body) abstain from the 
Eucharist and prayer because they confess not that L To the Smyr . 
the Eucharist is the flesh of our Saviour Jesus ma,,s 2 7 - 



728 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Christ, which (teen) suffered for our sins, which (een) the 
Father in His mercy raised again. They then who speak 
against the gift (dorean) perish while disputing. Good had it 
been for them to keep the feast of love (agapan), that they might 
rise again." Agapan has been translated " to love it," but the 
better rendering seems to be " to celebrate it," agapee, i. e., the 
Lord's Supper, taking its name from the " agapee," or " love- 
feast," with which it commenced in the earliest Church, as in 
the following paragraph it seems to be denned by the terms 
" agapee poiein," in the sense of " celebrating the Eucharist." 
The second citation is from the Epistle to the Philadelphians, 

2.TothePhiia- " Haste ye then to partake of one Eucharist, for 
deiphians. g 4. there is (or it is) the one flesh of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and one cup for the uniting of His blood (enosin,) one 
altar." The third citation is from the Epistle to the Ephe- 

3. to the Ephe- sians, " Breaking one bread, which is the medicine 
sians. § 20. f immortality ; the antidote that we should not 

die, but live in Jesus Christ forever." It is very obvious, that 
taking these words in their simple and native force, they best 
accord with the doctrine of the Lutheran Church. In theirs* 
place they affirm positively that the Eucharist is the flesh 
(einai sarka) of our Saviour Jesus Christ ; that it is the one 
flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ which constitutes it. Secondly. 
They distinctly affirm that the flesh meant is that which suf- 
fered for our sins, "which the Father in His mercy raised 
again ; " thus overthrowing one of the most recent figments of 
a very subtle, yet perverse interpretation, which, unable to 
deny that there is an objective presence of Christ taught by the 
Fathers, alleges that His body in the Eucharist is a body of 
bread, or that the bread, as such, is His body ; and that the 
blood of Christ in the Eucharist is a blood of wine, that is, 
that the wine itself is, as such, Christ's blood. Ignatius dis- 
tinctly testifies that the body in the Eucharist is not a body 
of bread, but is the body of that flesh which suffered for our 
sins and was raised from the dead. Ebrard* himself says: 
" The fundamental argument against the possibility of a tropi- 
cal use of the word ' flesh ' in Ignatius, lies in the fact that he 

* Abendm. I. 254. 



IGNATIUS. 729 

speaks distinctly of that very flesh which was put to death 
upon the cross, and was raised in glory by the Father." 
Thirdly. The effects imputed to the Eucharist by Ignatius are 
entirely inconsistent with the supposition of its being a mere 
memorial or a mere spiritual communion. He imputes to 
it the power of producing the resurrection to eternal life; not 
that he denies that the wicked shall rise again, but that like 
St. Paul, when he speaks of attaining unto the resurrection of 
the dead, he means the resurrection in its true glory, as a rising 
to eternal life. The medicine of immortality, the antidote to 
death, the spring of life in Christ forever, can be no other than 
Christ's flesh itself — the organ of His whole work. Kahnis.* 
" From these words it follows with certainty that Ignatius 
regarded the consecrated elements as the media of a Divine 
impartation of life, consequently as more than bare symbols ; " 
andEBRARDf admits, " When he calls the Eucharist a medium 
of immortality, it is clear that he was thinking not of a bare, 
subjective memory of Christ, but of an actual appropriation of 
Christ and of all His graces." Fourthly. So far from the early 
Church, as represented in Ignatius, being indifferent to the 
doctrine held in regard to the Lord's Supper, we find that it 
is distinctly marked as a heresy, practically resulting in the 
eternal death of those who held it, that the Eucharist is not 
the flesh of our Saviour. Taking then the simple and direct 
interpretation of Ignatius, we find him in perfect affinity with 
the Tenth Article of the Augsburg Confession: 1st. In the 
assertion that the true body and blood of our Saviour — that 
which suffered and that which was raised — is present in the 
Eucharist, actually constituting it. 2d. That true bread and 
true wine are present. 3d. That the bread and wine given and 
taken are the means by which the body and blood are im- 
parted. When he says, That the cup is for the uniting 
(" enosis ") of Christ's blood, the " enosis " points distinctly to 
that specific idea which Paul expresses when he says, The cup 
is the communion of Christ's blood, and which our Church 
expresses by saying that the blood is in, with, and under the 
cup. The word " enosis " is used by the Fathers to indicate the 
uniting of two things, and is most frequently used for the unit- 

*Dogmat. II. 195. f Abendm. I. 256. 



730 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ing of the human and divine natures in Christ. "Whether we 
interpret the " enosis " here as implying that the cup is that 
which unites, sacramentally, blood with wine, or blood with 
the communicant, by impartation and reception, the great 
idea remains unchanged, for either of these involves the other. 
4th. Even the antithetical part of the Tenth Article has its 
parallel in the condemnation of the Docetse for denying that 
the Eucharist is the flesh of Christ. That Ignatius teaches 
the doctrine of the objective presence of the body and blood of 
Christ in the Supper is shown among recent writers, by Engel- 
hardt, Francke, Rudelbach, Semisch, and Kahnis. 

THE TESTIMONY OF JUSTIN MARTYR. 

The second testimony we adduce is that of Justin Martyr 
ii. Justin Mar- (converted A. d. 133, put to death as a martyr, 165). 
tyr,A.D.i33. jf ^he c i a i m ] oe doubtful which has been made for 
him, that he was a disciple of the Apostles, the other claim 
may at least be allowed, that he was a man not far from the 
Apostles either in time or virtue. The extract we make is 
from his Apology. " Having ceased from the prayers, we greet 
Apology, i. c. one another with a kiss ; then bread and a cup 
66 ' 67 - of water and wine are brought to him who presideth 

over the brethren, and he, receiving them, sendeth up praise 
and glory to the Father of all, through the name of the Son 
and the Holy Spirit ; and maketh at length an Eucharistic 
prayer for having had these things vouchsafed to him. Those 
called among us ' deacons,' give to each of those present to 
partake of the bread and wine and water, over which thanks- 
giving has been made, and carry it to those not present ; this 
food, (' trophee,') is amongst us called ' Eucharist ■ (eucharistia), 
whereof no one may partake save he who believeth that what 
is taught by us is true, and hath been washed in that laver 
which is for the remission of sins, and to regeneration/ and 
liveth as Christ hath delivered ; for we do not receive it as 
common bread (koinon arton) or as common drink (koinon 
poma) ; but in what way (on tropon) Jesus Christ our 
Saviour being, through the word (dia logou) of God, incar- 
nate (sarkopoieetheis,) had both flesh and blood for our 
salvation, so also have we been taught that the food over 



JUSTIN MARTYR. 731 

which thanksgiving has been made by the prayer of the word 
(euchees logou), which is from Him — from which food our 
blood and flesh are by transmutation (metaboleen) nourished 
(trephontai) — is (einai) both the flesh and blood (kai sarka, kai 
aima) of Him, the incarnate Jesus (sarkopoieethentos)." 

Applying here the same simple principle of interpretation, 
we find, first, that the flesh and blood of Christ are the 
sacramental objects ; second, that they are distinguished from 
the bread and the wine ; third, that they are so related to the 
bread and wine that the reception of the one implies the 
reception of the other — there is a sacramental unity and identi- 
fication ; fourth, that this relation is not one produced by the 
figurative character of bread and wine, as symbols of body and 
blood, but a relation subsequent to the consecration and pro- 
duced by it ; fifth, that a parallel of some kind is instituted 
between the two natures of Christ, conjoined personally in His 
incarnation, and the two elements, bread and body, cup and 
blood, conjoined sacramentally in the Supper. Sixth. The anti- 
thesis is implied when it is said, That no one may partake of 
this food among us save he who believeth that what is taught 
by us is true. This means that the rejecter of this doctrine 
of the Lord's Supper in common with the rejecter of any other 
article of faith is disapproved of and excluded from the Com- 
munion. Thus, again, is overthrown the false assumption that 
the ancient Church allowed of known conflicting views in 
regard to the Lord's Supper. Seventh. These words of Justin 
show that the supernatural character of the elements in the 
Supper is dependent upon consecration. He distinctly aflirms 
that only after the word of God upon them do they possess 
their character as the flesh and blood of Christ. This alone 
overthrows the Zwinglian doctrine, for if the bread be the body 
of Christ symbolically, it is such, as bread, quite independently 
of any consecration. Eighth. Justin expresses the true doctrine 
of what it is that does consecrate in the Supper ; gives the 
true answer to the question: What is it, by which that 
which was before mere bread, now becomes, in virtue of a 
supernatural relation, the body of Christ ? He says, That the 
consecration takes place through the prayer of the word, which 



732 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

is from Him, i. e., Christ, (di euchees logou tou par autou). This 
may include the Lord's Prayer, but by preeminence it expresses 
the words of the institution, which we know, in fact, constituted 
an essential part of the earliest liturgies ; and St. Justin him- 
self expressly mentions Christ's words as the words used in the 
consecration, and makes them parallel with the consecrating 
words used in the mysteries of " Mithra," which were a dia- 
bolic copy and parody of the Lord's Supper. 

It has been asserted that the doctrine of Justin is that in 
the Supper a new incarnation of Christ takes place. This view 
has been maintained by Semler, Hahn, Meander, Baur, Engel- 
hardt, and others. It has, following them, been most fully 
presented by Semisch, in his Justin Martyr.* " Justin," says 
Semisch, " regards the Supper as it were a repeated incarna- 
tion ; as the incarnation was consummated in this, that the 
Divine Logos assumed flesh and blood, so he supposes that the 
presence of Christ in the Supper mediates itself in this, that 
the Divine Logos unites Himself with bread and wine as His 
body and blood. Bread and wine do not change physically in 
the Supper, but neither do they remain common bread and 
common wine. They are, after the Eucharistic prayer by 
which they are consecrated, as it were the vessel in which the 
Divine Logos dwells, and are, consequently, really, even if only 
figuratively, the body and blood of the Logos." This means 
that the bread is not the medium of the communication of the 
body of Christ, but is in some sense literally the new body of 
the unincarnate Logos. That is to say, that the Divine nature 
of Christ, separate from His human body, puts on the bread of 
the Eucharist as a new body ; hence this bread is a body to the 
unincarnate Logos. That this is not Justin's view is very clear, 
first, because he connects with his own representation the 
words of the institution; clearly showing that he had in his 
mind the words, u my body, my blood," there occurring in that 
sense almost undisputed, in which they are accepted by univer- 
sal Christendom, even by those who deny the doctrine of the 
true presence. When Justin speaks of the body of Christ he 

* Semisch, C. A.: Justin der Martyrer, 1840-42, (translated by J. F. Ryland, 
Edinb., 1843, 2 vols., post 8vo). 



J US TIN MART YE. 733 

evidently has in view those words in which Christ says : " My 
body given — my blood shed for you." Who can believe that 
Justin imagined an impanate and invinate Jesus ; and that he 
was so beclouded as to imagine that this bread-body could be 
the body which was given for men, this wine-blood, the blood 
which was shed for mankind for the I'emission of sins. The 
bread and the cup cannot be thought of as that body of Christ 
which was given and that blood which was shed for the remis- 
sion of sins. Nothing, but the impossibility of any other view, 
would justify us in fixing so monstrous a theory upon the 
language of Justin. Second. Justin is very careful to express 
how far the parallel between the personal co-presence of the two 
natures of Christ and the sacramental co-presence of the two 
elements of the Supper goes and does not go. The " on tropon," 
which we have translated, " in what way," does not mean to 
state that the modes of the two things are identical, but simply 
to show that the first is a voucher for the second ; that there 
is such a parallel ; that the first authenticates and, to a certain 
degree, explains the second ; but not at all that there is an iden- 
tity of mode, still less that the second is a repetition of the first. 
In the Septuagint and New Testament, " on tropon " has the 
sense, "As, even as, what manner, corresponding to," Ezek. xlii. 
7 : " After the manner of," Ezek. xlv. 6. " Outoos " has the 
sense, " So, even so, likewise, thus." There are passages in the 
Biblical Greek in which the two expressions are related pre- 
cisely as in Justin. 2 Maccab. xv. 40, " As (on tropon) 
wine mingled with water is pleasant, even so (outoos) speech 
finely framed delighteth." Acts i. 11, "In like manner as (on 
tropon) ye have seen Him go into heaven, this same Jesus shall 
so (outoos) come." 2 Tim. iii. 8, "Now as (on tropon) Jannes 
and Jambres withstood Moses, so (outoos) these also resist the 
truth." Not identity but similarity is expressed in every case. 
Justin clearly says, that the " word," in virtue of which the 
Eucharist becomes Christ's flesh and blood, is the word of the 
prayer, or prayer of the word, " euchees logou." It is not the 
Logos which effects the change of which he speaks, but the 
prayer of the word which is from Him, to wit, from Jesus 
Christ, whom he has just styled the " incarnate Logos." 



734 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Finally, he says, in downright terms, that it (the bread and 
wine) are the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesas, exactly the 
opposite of the position of Semisch, and of those who agree 
with him, which is, that the bread and wine are the body and 
blood of the unincarnate Logos. Now, could Justin call the un- 
incarnate Logos Jesus ? The Logos separated from the human 
nature is not Jesus. This manufactured theory represents 
Jesus as both incarnate and unincarnate, as having one abiding 
body of flesh, and innumerable ever-renewed bodies of bread, 
as approaching unincarnate the elements and taking them to 
Him, the bread as another body than His true body, the wine 
as another blood than His true blood. That great scholars 
should have acquiesced in a theory of such intrinsic absurdity 
— a theory which has nothing, in the language of Justin, to 
necessitate or even excuse it — can only be accounted for by the 
endemic disease of thought and feeling which in German the- 
ology so largely infects even those who most wish to escape it. 
The ambitious ardor of scholarship, the desire after originality, 
the love of novelty, the chaotic subjectivism which Rationalism, 
though baffled and defeated, leaves behind it, impair the solid 
judgment, and diminish the value of the labors of many 
of the greatest recent theologians.* Thiersch f says of this 
theory, " I declare that this whole statement is through- 
out fabulous. It has arisen from pure misunderstanding, and 
is undeserving of farther notice. It would destroy the entire 
connection of the Christian faith, and annihilate the most hal- 
lowed doctrine of the ancient Church — the doctrine of the 
Incarnation." The Roman Catholic theology long endeavored 
to find in the words " kata metaboleen," that is, " by transmu- 
tation," a warrant for Transubstantiation ; but these words so 
evidently refer to the transmutation of the bread and wine, as 

*"Es will jedermann im Laden feil stehen, nicht dass er Christum order sein 
Geheimniss wolle offenbaren, sondern sein eigen Geheimniss und scheme Ge- 
danken, die Er iiber Christi Geheimniss halt, nicht umsonst gehabt haben." — 
Luther. (''Everybody has his wares to offer — not that he wishes to reveal 
Christ and His secret, but that he is anxious that his secret and the beautiful 
idea he has about Christ's Secret shall not be lost.") 

fin his able "Prelections on Catholicism and Protestantism," vol. ii., p. 247. 



JUSTIN MARTYR. 735 

the sustenance of man, that Dcellinger, the ablest defender of 
the Romish views in our day, abandons the position. It is 
decisive against Romanism and Calvinism. " The Lutheran 
theologians," says Kahnis, " are justified in finding in this 
passage a testimony to the doctrine of the sacramental union 
of the body and blood of Christ with the elements ; and in 
regarding this, not as the testimony of one Church teacher, but 
of the Church, as Justin represents it." " The least justifica- 
tion of all," says Semisch, "has the Reformed Church, in ap- 
pealing to these words of Justin, in defence of its views of the 
Lord's Supper ; for not only is there throughout not a word in 
regard to a merely symbolical relation of the elements of the 
Supper to the body and blood of Christ, but the very opposite 
is clearly expressed in the declaration that the bread and wane 
of the Supper are not common bread, but the body and blood 
of Christ. The parallel which Justin draws between the incar- 
nation of Jesus and the act of the Supper make it absolutely 
necessary to suppose that as the corporeal nature of the incar- 
nate Redeemer was a real one, so also the bread and wine of 
the Supper are to be taken in a real sense for the body and 
blood of Christ." Even Dorner * says: " Although it is not 
strictly correct to identify his doctrine completely with the 
Lutheran, yet, from what has been said, it is evident that it 
stands most near to the Lutheran." Ebrard f puts the con- 
struction on the words : " As Jesus, supernaturally begotten, 
had His creaturely flesh in order to secure our redemption, so 
this Eucharistic food, which has been consecrated by prayer,. — 
this food wherein we are nourished conformably to the trans- 
mutation of the creation, — is the body and blood of Christ (a 
supercreaturely food having respect to the Redeemer). Under 
metabolee, I believe, we are neither to understand the trans- 
mutation of bread and wine into the flesh and blood of Christ 
nor into our flesh and blood, but the world-historical fact of 
the transformation of the creaturely into the sanctified — the 
redeemed." On this, Kahnis % adds : " This exposition, and the 
argument for it, is to such a degree arbitrary and unhistorical, 
that we regard a refutation of it as unnecessary." 

-Person Christi, II. 401. f Abendm. 1.260. % Abendm. 186. 



736 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

THE TESTIMONY OF IREK&US. 

Our next great primary witness is St. Iren^ius, martyr. He 
lived near the time of the Apostles. He was most intimate with 
Polycarp, who was one of the Apostle John's best beloved 
friends, and from Polycarp's own lips he heard what John told 
in regard to Christ : " Noting these things," he says, " in my 
heart." Tertullian styles Irenseus, " the most exact investigator 
of all doctrines." Erasmus says : " His writings breathe that 
ancient vigor of the Gospel, and his style argues a spirit ready 
for martyrdom." The school of Asia Minor, alike in the range 
of its science and the purity of its faith, was the great 
school of this era ; and its most faithful and profound repre- 
sentative in its best tendencies is Irenseus. He has expressed 
in. Irenes, himself in several passages with great clearness in 
fi, 176-202. regard to the Eucharist. The most important 
passage in regard to the essence and effects of the Eucharist 
is found in his " Book against Heresies," b. 4, ch. 18, § 45. 
He holds up against the Gnostics the confession of the Church 
as embodied in fact in the Supper. First of all, the offering 
of the products of nature — the bread and wine, which are the 
body and blood of Christ — is in conflict with the dualism of the 
Gnostics, according to which the world is not regarded as 
created by the Supreme God. Second. He urges against it the 
Church faith that our bodies, through the Supper, receive the 
potencies of the resurrection. This is opposed to the Gnostic 
dualism between matter and spirit. He speaks thus : " How 
shall they know certainly that that bread, over which thanks 
are given, is the body of their Lord, and that the cup is the 
cup of His blood, if they do not acknowledge Him as the Son 
of the Creator of the world, that is, His Word, through which 
Word wood yields fruit, and fountains flow, and the earth 
yieldeth blade, ear, and full corn. If the Lord belong to an- 
other Father, how was it just, that, taking bread of this our crea- 
tion, He confessed that it was His own body, and He affirmed 
that the mingled drink of the cup was His own blood." 

" Altogether vain are they who deny the salvation of the 
flesh and despise its regeneration, saying that it is not capable 
of incorruption. But if it will not be saved, in truth, the Lord 



IRENJEUS. 737 

has not redeemed us by His blood, nor is the cup of the Eu- 
charist the communication of His blood, nor the bread which 
we break the communication of His body ; for blood is not 
save of veins and flesh, and of the rest of human substance, in 
which the "Word of God was truly made." 

"How say they that the flesh passeth to corruption, and 
partaketh not of life, the flesh which is nourished from the 
body of the Lord and His blood. Either let them (i.e. heretics) 
change their mind or abstain from offering the things above 
spoken of (that is, the Eucharist). Our doctrine harmonizes 
with the Eucharist, and the Eucharist confirms our doctrine, 
and we offer to God His own, carefully teaching the communi- 
cation and union of the flesh and spirit, and confessing the 
resurrection. Eor as the earthly bread (literally, the bread from 
the earth,) (apo gees artos), receiving the invocation of God, is no 
longer common bread, but Eucharist, consisting of two things, 
an earthly and a heavenly, so also our bodies, receiving the 
Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the 
resurrection to eternal life." 

Here we see distinctly, First, the doctrine of the copresence, 
really and truly, of the two elements, — the earthly one, true 
bread ; the heavenly one, true body ; the earthly one, the true 
cup ; the heavenly one, the true blood. Second. We see that 
the earthly is regarded as the communicating medium of the 
heavenly, and a supernatural efficacy, reaching both body an& 
soul, is connected with them. "We see, moreover, that the 
consecration (the ekkleesis or epikleesis) of God produces the 
union of the earthly and heavenly. The doctrine of Irenaeus 
alike is opposed to the Romish denial of the bread and the 
Reformed denial of the body. 

Very violent is the pretext of Doellinger and Mohler, who 
make the earthly part the body and blood of Christ, and the 
heavenly part, the Logos ; but the passage says nothing about 
the Logos, nor would the Fathers call the Logos a pragma, a 
thing or part of the Eucharist. The " epigeion " (earthly) 
manifestly refers to the "apo gees," (just before,) the earth, 
from which the bread is said to come, and with reference to 
which it is called " earthly." 
47 



738 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Some of the Reformed say that Irenseus means by the heav- 
enly element the significance of the elements : others maintain 
that he means a certain virtue or operation supposed to be in- 
fused into the elements. But these evasions of the meaning of 
Irenseus are, First, opposed to the direct letter of his statement : 
the significance, or virtue, would not justify the word " consist." 
Bread does not consist of wheat and symbolic meaning, nor of 
wheat and spiritual power. Second. To the argument of Ire- 
nseus : " Our bodies, receiving the Eucharist, are no longer cor- 
ruptible, but have hope of the resurrection." Does he attribute 
so great a thing to a virtue (not to speak of a significance) in 
the bread and wine? Possibly the ardor of partizanship might 
lead some to reply, He does ; but such a reply is precluded by 
his words in immediate connection : " How say they (the her- 
etics) that our flesh comes to corruption, and does not receive 
life, that flesh which is nurtured by the body and blood of the 
Lord." Third. To the direct assertion of Irenseus, in a parallel 
place : * "Where the mingled cup and bread receives the word 
of God, it becomes the Eucharist of the body and blood of Christ." 

Dorner,f after showing the untenableness of Semisch's theo- 
ry, adds: "As Semisch concedes, the Catholic doctrine of Tran- 
substantiation is excluded by the words of Irenseus, and no 
less is the Reformed conception. This does not indeed de- 
monstrate that the Lutheran view is that of Irenseus, yet it 
cannot be denied that Irenseus stands more closely to it." 
Thiersch says : "So much stands indisputably firm that the 
body and blood of Christ is as certainly the ' ouranion ' (the 
heavenly thing) of the Eucharist, as the bread derived from 
the earth, and the wine derived from the earth, is the c epi- 
geion ' (the earthly thing) of the Eucharist." " But," adds 
Kahnis, " this relation one to the other, of the heavenly and 
earthly matter, is the characteristic feature of the Lutheran 
doctrine." 

On the meaning of the testimony of these earliest Fathers, a 

Marheineke's most important concession is made by Marheineke4 

concession. rp^. g concegs i on j s the more striking because it is 

connected with his effort to establish the theory that the 

*Adv. Hares, V. 296. fin his Per. Ch , vol. ii., p. 496. 

I Sanctor. Patrum de Present. 22-81. 



MAEHEINEKE'S CONCESSION. 739 

Reformed doctrine of the Lord's Supper was predominant in 
the first four centuries. Marheineke, after presenting the evi- 
dence on which he rests his theory, goes on to say : " There are 
other sayings of other Fathers (of this era), which, in whatso- 
ever way they may be tortured, seem to admit of no other 
meaning than that of the real presence of our Lord." Such is 
that of Justin Martyr. " By no force, and by no artifice (nulla 
vi nulloque artificio), can his words be harmonized with the 
symbolic interpretation. The presence of Christ is true in the 
same sense in which the bread and wine are in themselves true, 
and there is a conjunction of Christ with them." "Ireioeus 
does not say that the earthly is but the figure of the heavenly, 
but teaches that there is a conjunction of the heavenly, to wit, 
the Son of God, with that earthly nature, bread and wine. 
* Christ declared that the bread is His oivn proper (idion) body, 
and the cup His own proper (idion) blood ; ' from which words 
ought to be gathered what he means by the ' earthly ' and 
1 heavenly ' things. The typical sense, therefore," (the Re- 
formed) "and the hyperbolic" (the Romish) " Irenseus clearly 
excludes. Weighing with a just balance, we shall see that 
Irenaeus held the middle view " (the Lutheran) " in regard to 
the real presence." 

From the simple sense, then, of their own language, and from 
the concessions of men of eminence, who had reason to grant 
as little force as the testimony could possibly bear to our doc- 
trine, it is fixed that the earliest witnesses of the faith of 
Christendom accord with the confession of the Lutheran 
Church in regard to the objective sacramental presence of the 
body and blood of Christ in the Holy Supper. They stand as a 
bulwark alike against the false spiritualism which reduces the 
Divine mystery to the level of nature, and that carnalism which 
makes it a prodigy arrayed against nature. They maintain, as 
our Church does, that the sacramental presence is neither na- 
tural nor unnatural, but supernatural, that is, is neither con- 
ditioned by the laws of the lower natures, nor contrary to them, 
but is conformed to the laws of the Supreme Nature. 

The ancient Church Catholic professed to have one concord- 
ant faith. That interpretation, therefore, of the utterances of 



740 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

individual witnesses is most probable, all other things being 
equal, which best accords with the claim. The faith once de- 
livered to the saints has abode through all time. By separat- 
ing the testimony, and by assuming that the Christian Church 
for centuries had no fixed doctrine, no faith in regard to the 
Eucharist, but that there was a mere chaos of conflicting pri- 
vate opinions, the Fathers have been forced into contradiction 
of each other and of themselves. But if it first be allowed that 
the whole testimony of the Fathers, as adduced by Romanists, 
Lutherans, and Reformed, may be internally harmonious, and 
if that possible harmony be tested by the effort to arrange the 
whole in a self-consistent system, the Romish and Reformed 
views alike fail to meet the demands of the case ; and the whole 
testimony, as a whole, corresponds from beginning to end with 
the Lutheran faith. We claim that the Latin and Greek 
Fathers had the same faith touching the Eucharist, and that 
the faith they held is identical with that confessed in the Tenth 
Article of the Augsburg Confession. This we shall endeavor 
to establish by a Systematic Statement of their views in their 
own words. 

1. The Fathers clearly assert the substantial reality of the bread 
systematic and wine before, during, and after the Supper. 
viewsT^the ra- Their utterances, decisive against Transubstantiation, 
thers. have been perverted to a denial of the objective true 

presence, which they firmly held. They call these visible ele- 
ments " bread and wine " throughout ; they speak of them as 
" of the creature," " made of the fruits of the earth," as " the 
food of life," " the substance of bread and wine," (Theophylact 
in Marc. 14,) the bread is " made up of many united grains," is 
" wheat," " the nature of bread remains in it," (Chrysostom,) 
" not altering nature," (Theodoret).* The wine is "the blood 
of the vine," " fruit of the vine," " wine pressed out of many 
grapes," as conjoined with water it is " mixed," " the mystical 
symbols depart not from their own nature, for they remain still 
in their former substance," (ousia) (Theodoret). f So express 
is the language of Theodoret against Transubstantiation, that 
in the edition of his Dialogues, published in Rome, 1547, by 

* Dialog. I., IV. f Dialog. II. 






THE VIEWS OF THE FATHERS. 741 

Nicoliuus, printer to the Pope, it is admitted that his view is 
unsound (from the Romish point of view), and the apology is 
made for him that the Church had not yet fixed the doctrine 
by her decree. ~Eo less express is the language of Pope Gela- 
sius (a. d. 492) : * " Certainly the Sacraments of the body and 
blood of Christ are a divine thing, through which we are made 
partakers of the divine nature; and yet the substance or nature 
of bread and wine does not cease to be (tamen esse non desinit 
substantia, vel natura panis et vim)." So helpless are the acut- 
est Romish controversialists, Baronius, Bellarmin, Suarez, and 
others, before this passage, that they try to prove that another 
Gelasius wrote the book. But not only have these arguments 
been overthrown by Protestant writers, but the Jesuit Labbe, 
renowned for his learning and his bitter antagonism to Protes- 
tantism, has completely vindicated the claim of Pope Gelasius 
to the authorship of the book.f 

2. They sometimes speak of the elements, simply considered 
as bread and wine, in their natural relations and characteristics 
— as taken from the earth, nourishing the body, passing into 
the circulation of the blood. " Food by which our blood and 
flesh are nourished by transmutation," (Justin ;) " by which the 
substance of our flesh is nourished and consists," (Ireueeus). 

3. They sometimes speak of the elements, considered in them- 
selves, as natural symbols ; bread and wine as the most obvious 
symbols of spiritual nutrition and reviving, and this natural sym- 
bolism remains through the Supper. Cyprian : "As common 
bread, which we eat daily, is the food of the body, so that super- 
substantial bread is the life of the soul, the healing of the mind." 
" Because, among all things that are the food of life, bread and 
wine seem most to strengthen and refresh our infirmity, it is with 
great reason that He was pleased through these two things to 
confirm the mystery of His Sacrament. For wine both gladdens 
us and increases our blood ; and, therefore, not unfitly the blood of 
Christ is figured by it." % I n this aspect the elements are some- 
times styled symbols, signs, figures, types of the body and blood. 

*De duabus natur. in Chr. adv. Eutych. et Nestor, in Bibl. Patr. Mag. IV., I. 
422. 

fCave: Hist. Lit. Ann. 492, p. 298. Deyling: Obs. Misc. 361. 
% Druthmar (Christianus) on Matt. 26. 



742 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ISo passage in any of the Fathers asserts that the elements in 
the Supper are merely signs or symbols. The passages of Ter- 
Tertuiiian'8 ap- tullian, in which the word " figure " is applied to 
plication of the the Lord's Supper, have been the subject of much 
To 01 the "lorI's controversy. In the first of these passages,* he 
supper. j s speaking of the prophecies concerning Christ. He 

first urges Psalm xcvi. 10, according to a reading peculiar to 
some of the Greek writers, of which Justin also makes men- 
tion : " The Lord hath reigned from the wood." This " wood," 
says Tertullian, is " the wood of the cross." " This wood," he 
continues, " Jeremiah prophesies of (xi. 9) — that the Jews 
should say, t Come, let us put wood upon His bread ;' undoubtedly 
meaning upon His body. For so did God reveal even in the 
Gospel, which you receive as genuine, calling bread His body ; 
so that, hence, already you may understand that He assigned to 
bread the figura of His body, whose body the prophet had figu- 
r ated upon bread, of old, the Lord himself meaning in after 
time to explain the mystery." In this passage nothing seems 
to us more clearly Tertullian's train of reasoning than this : 
Jeremiah meant by " wood " the cross, by " bread " Christ's 
body. Christ, by calling " bread " His body, gave the key to 
Jeremiah's meaning. This bread is the figura, the real thing 
which Jeremiah figurated, or couched under a figura ; and this 
bread is that figure (now opened), because this bread is my 
body. Jeremiah calls Christ's true body, which was to have 
the cross laid upon it, bread. Why ? Because, replies Ter- 
tullian, there was to be a bread which should be Christ's true 
body. Jeremiah calls that bread which was true body — and 
Christ opens the mystery by declaring that there is a bread, 
to wit, the Eucharistic bread — which is His true body, " assign- 
ing to bread the figura of His body," as the prophet before had 
assigned to His body the figura of bread. He identifies the panis 
of the prophet with the panis of the Communion ; and, by con- 
sequence, as the panis of the prophet is really the body which 
was crucified, so is the panis of the Communion really the body 
which was crucified. That the Calvinistic interpretation is 
impossible, is very clear. As Tertullian reasons, if the panis in 

*Adv. Marcion, III., XIX. 



TERTULLIAN. 743 

the Supper is not Christ's body, but the sign of it, then the 
panis in the prophet would not mean Christ's body, but would 
mean the sign of it ; and the inference would be that he means, 
let us put the wood upon the sign of His body, that is, on the 
bread — which would make the inference exactly the opposite 
of that which Tertullian does make, would cause him to stul- 
tify himself and the prophet, and instead of confuting Marcion, 
he would play into his hands. Tertullian's whole point is this, 
what " bread " means in Jeremiah, it is in the Supper. It 
means Christ's body in Jeremiah, because it is Christ's body in 
the Supper. " To assign the (prophet's) figura of His body to 
the (sacramental) bread," means that what the prophet figured, 
that is meant by bread as a figura, to wit, Christ's body, is by 
Christ assigned to the sacramental bread — what the first 
means, the second is, to wit, Christ's body. 

In another passage the same thought is repeated. He is 
showing that the " wood " of the cross is prophesied Advers< Juda sos. 
of. He again quotes Jeremiah : " ' Let us put wood Cha P- x - 
upon His bread.' Assuredly wood was put upon His body. For 
so Christ hath revealed, calling bread His body, whose body 
aforetime the prophet figurated upon bread." The point again 
is, Why does the prophet give the name of bread to Christ's 
crucified body ? The answer is, Christ gives the name of His 
crucified body to bread. But how does this answer meet the 
case? for the prophet, as Tertullian marks and emphasizes, has 
done exactly the opposite. The prophet calls Christ's body 
bread. Christ calls the bread His body. If Christ by this one 
phrase means that the bread is the sign of His body, the pro- 
phet by the other would of necessity mean that the body is 
the sign of the bread, which is absurd. The whole point of 
Tertullian rests again upon the supposition that it is one and 
the same thing which is called " bread " by the prophet and by 
Christ ; and that because Christ calls bread His body, bread in 
the prophet means His body. On the contrary, if by " bread " 
Christ means not his body, but the symbolic signs of his body, 
then the prophet does not mean His body by bread, but the 
symbolic sign of His body ; and Jeremiah's bread is bread. 

These facts prepare us for a clearer view of the passage in 



744 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

which this same argument is opened in its greatest fulness by 
Tertullian : " The law figurated Christ's passion, The bread re- 
Adv. Marcion, eeived and distributed to His disciples, He made that 
lv - 40 - body of His own (ilium suum), by saying, ' This is 

my body,' that is, figura of my body. But there would not have 
been a figura unless there would be a body of verity. But an 
empty thing, which is phantasm, cannot receive a figura. Or 
if He feigned that bread was His body, because He lacked verity 
of body, it would follow that He delivered up bread for us. 
But why does He call bread His body ? Marcion understands 
this to have been the ancient figura of the body of Christ, who 
said, through Jeremiah : ' They have thought a thought against 
me, saying, Come, let us cast wood upon His bread,' to wit, 
the cross upon His body. Wherefore, He who sheddeth light 
on the things of old, hath, by calling bread His own body, made 
sufficiently clear what He then meant ' bread ' to signify. That 
ye may also recognize the ancient figura of blood in the wine, 
Isaiah will aid." No passage in the most ancient Fathers 
has been so triumphantly appealed to by the rejecters of the 
objective presence as this ; and yet, carefully examined, it is 
not for them ; it is not neutral, but is utterly against them. 
The " figura " here is not a symbolic figure in the Supper, but 
is the " figura " of prophecy. This is most clear, First. From 
the whole drift of the argument, which turns upon the evidence 
that the Old Testament figurates, presents figures of the things 
of the New. Second. From the tenses of the verb which follows 
"figura of my body." "For there would not have been (non 
fuisset) a figure unless there would be (esset) a body of truth." 
"Fuisset " in the pluperfect, contrasted with "esset " in the 
imperfect, distinctly marks that the figura pertains to the past 
prophecy, as the esset does to the later Eucharist. Third. The 
figura is expressly said to be the ancient figura. " This to have 
been (fuisse, perfect) ancient figura (veterem figuram) of the 
body of Christ." Fourth. The figura of the blood is expressly 
called the " ancient figure." Fifth. The same argument which 
was used in connection with the other passages applies with 
equal force here. The thought is, Christ made the bread His 
body by the consecrating words; and thus this bread, now 



TERTULLIAN. 745 

by sacramental conjunction His body, is identified by Him with 
the ancient prophetic figura of His body. The thing which 
the prophet calls bread is literally Christ's body ; the thing which 
Christ offers in the Eucharist is literally Christ's body. Hence, 
we recognize the ancient figura of the body in the bread, as we 
" recognize the ancient figura of the blood in the wine." " As 
now He hath consecrated His blood in wine, who under the 
Old Covenant figurated wine in blood," so now He hath conse- 
crated His body in bread, as under the Old Covenant He figu- 
rated bread in His body. What is figure there is reality here 
— the figura and reality are thus identified — the bread of 
Jeremiah and the bread in the Supper are one and the same 
thing, to wit, the body of Christ. 

4. They constantly distinguish between the elements con- 
sidered as before the consecration and after it. Iren^us : " The 
bread which receives the vocation of God in the administration 
of the Supper." Isidore : " That which being made of the fruits 
of the earth is sanctified and made a sacrament, the Spirit of 
God operating invisibly." Theodoret : " After consecration, we 
call the fruit of the vine the Lord's blood." Cyril of Jerusa- 
lem: * " The bread and wine of the Eucharist before the invo- 
cation is mere bread and wine." 

5. They assert that the bread after consecration is not in every 
respect what it was before. Iren^us : " It is not common 
bread." " Though that bread be bread before the sacramental 
words, yet, when the consecration is added, of bread it becomes 
Christ's body."f " Our bread and cup is not mystical, but is 
made mystical to us by a certain consecration." J Cyril of 
Jerusalem: " After invocation, the bread becomes the body of 
Christ, and the wine His blood." 

6. They assert the presence of two elements; the first of 
which is earthly, the second, heavenly. Irekeus : § "It is a 
Eucharist consisting of two things, an earthly thing and hea- 

* Cat. Myst. Prim. 

■j- De Sacramentis, Lib. IV., imputed to Ambrose. 

J Augustine, Contr. Faust. L. XX. c. 13, fit non nascitur. 

a Adv. Hser. IV. 34. 



746 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

venly tiring." Augustine : * "It consists of two things, the 
visible species of the elements, and the invisible flesh and blood 
of our Lord Jesus, the Sacrament, and the thing of the Sacra- 
ment, the body and blood of Christ." Hesychius : "At the 
same time bread and flesh." Augustine: " One thing is the 
object of vision, the other of the understanding." 

7. They assert that the heavenly is received in the earthly. 
Tertullian : f "In the bread is accounted the body of Christ. 
His blood He hath consecrated in wine." Cyril J of Jerusa- 
lem : "In the type of bread His body is given thee, and in the 
type of wine His blood, that thou mayest be of one body and 
of one blood with Him. His sacred flesh and precious blood 
we received the bread and wine." Augustine :§ "Receive 
in the bread that which hung upon the cross. Receive in the 
cup that which was shed from Christ's side." He severely 
reproves Urbicus [| for " reproachful words against the whole 
Church of Christ from the rising of the sun unto the going 
down thereof;" and most of all because he does not believe 
that " now also the blood is received in the cup." Chrysos- 
tom : If " That which is in the cup is that which flowed from 
His side, and of it we are partakers." Facundus: " The Sac- 
rament of His body and blood, which is in the consecrated 
bread and cup. They contain in them the mystery of His body 
and blood." 

8. They assert that the heavenly is received with the earthly. 
Chrysostom : ** " With those things which are seen, we believe, 
are present the body and blood of Christ." 

9. They assert that the heavenly is received under the 
earthly. Hilary : ff " Under the Sacrament of the flesh to be 
communicated to us, He hath mingled the nature of His own 
flesh. . . We truly under a mystery receive the flesh of His 
body." Cyril of Jerusalem : JJ "Under the species of bread 

*Apud. Gratian. II. 48. fDe Oratione, IV. Adv. Marc. IV. 40. 

X Cateches IV. Epist. ad. Coelosyr. \ Ad. Neophytos, I. 

|| Epist. LXXXVI. \ Horn. XXIV. in I. Cor. 

** Horn. XXIV. in I. Cor. De Sacerdot. III. ft De Trinitat. VIII. 
%\ Catech. Mystagog. 4. 



THE FATHERS. 747 

the body is given there, and under the species of wine the blood 
is given there." Bernhard : "What we see is the species of 
bread and wine : what we believe to be under that species is 
the true body and true blood of Christ, which hung upon the 
cross, and which flowed from His side." 

10. They expressly deny that the elements, considered in their 
distinctive sacramental character, are figures of the body and 
biood. John of Damascus : * " The bread and wine are not the 
figure of Christ's body and blood, but the very body of our 
Lord : inasmuch as the Lord himself has said, This is not the 
figure of a body, but my body ; not a figure of blood, but my 
blood. If some, as for example St. Basil, have called the bread 
and wine images and figures of the body and blood of the Lord, 
they have said it not after the consecration, but before it." 
jSTicephorus : f " We do not call these things image or figure, 
but the body of Christ itself." 

11. The Fathers considered the Lord's Supper as a great act 
in which believers alone could lawfully unite — those who re- 
ceived the pure faith, and who were regenerate of water and 
the Holy Ghost — none but the baptized, who were living as 
Christian men, were allowed even to look upon it. Justin 
Martyr : u Of the Eucharist, no one may partake save he who 
believeth that what is taught by us is true, and hath been washed 
in that laver which is for the remission of sins and to regenera- 
tion, and liveth as Christ hath delivered." 

12. They applied to it names and epithets which imply its 
supernatural character. They call it " a mystery " in the latter 
sense, as a thing surpassing all grasp of reason — " a mystery 
before which we should tremble." Ignatius styles it " The 
medicine of immortality ; the antidote against death, which 
secures life in God through Jesus Christ ; the purifier ; the 
arrester of evil ; the bread of God ; the bread of heaven." 
Justin calls it, " The assumption into the fellowship of the 
Son." Dionysius: "The initiation into the mystery of mys- 
teries." The Nicene Canon: " The viaticum ; the supply for 
the journey of life." Damascenus : " The amulet against every 
evil ; the purifier from every spot ; the earnest of the life and 

* De Fide Orthodox, IV. 13. f Allatius de perpet. Cons. III. 15. 



748 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the kingdom yet to come." Basil prays that he may receive 
it as the viaticum of life everlasting and the acceptable defence 
before the awful bar of God. Chrysostom calls it " The table 
which is the sinew of our soul ; the bread of the understanding ; 
the ground of confidence. It is hope, salvation, light, and life." 
" On account of this body, I am no longer earth and ashes — am 
no more captive but free ; for its sake I hope for heaven, the 
life immortal, the state of angels, the near converse with 
Christ." 

13. They find prophecies and types of it everywhere in the 
Old Testament. Ambrose : " Hear holy David speaking of the 
table in (Ps. xxiii. 5), foreseeing these mysteries, and rejoicing : 
He that receiveth the body of Christ shall never hunger." The 
Fathers find types of the Eucharist in the Paschal Lamb, the 
manna, the blood of the Old Covenant, the shew-bread, and the 
flesh of the sacrifices. 

14. They lay great stress on the divinity and omnipotence of 
Christ, as essential to the possibility of the sacramental presence 
and to the comprehension of its character. Chrysostom : " It 
is not man who makes the bread and wine the body and blood 
of Christ, but Christ himself, who was crucified for us. By the 
power of God, those things which are set forth are consecrated 
through the medium of the words, This is my body." Iren^us : 
" How shall they (the heretics) know that the Eucharistic bread 
is the body of their Lord, and the cup the cup of His blood, if 
they do not acknowledge Him as the Son of the Creator of the 
world, His Logos, through whom the tree grows fruitful, the 
fountains rise, and who giveth first the blade, then the ear, 
then the full corn in the ear." Ambrose: "What word of 
Christ bringeth the Sacrament to pass ? That word by which 
all things were made — the heaven, the earth, the sea. The 
power of the benediction is greater than fclie power of nature." 
Cyprian : " That bread is made flesh by the omnipotence of the 
Word." 

15. They insist upon following the literal force of the words, 
accepting them by faith, however the senses and natural reason 
may conflict with it; and declining even to attempt to define 



THE FATHERS. 749 

the mode of the presence. Chrysostom : * " We believe God 
everywhere, though to our senses and thought that which He 
says seems absurd. His word surpasses our sense and reason. 
In all things, but especially in mysteries, we regard not alone 
the things which lie before us, but we cling also to His words. 
Our senses are easily deceived ; His words cannot mislead us. 
When therefore He says : This is my body, there is no ambi- 
guity to hold us ; but we believe and perceive clearly with the 
eyes of the understanding." Cyril of Alexandria: "How He 
can give us His flesh, it is impious to ask. He who asks it has 
forgotten that nothing is impossible with God. We, bringing 
to the mysteries a firm faith, never think or urge in such 
lofty matters that question, How ? It is a Jewish word. When 
God worketh, we do not ask : How ? but commit to Him alone 
the way and knowledge of His own work." Damascenus : f 
" Of the mystery, we know only that the word of Christ is true, 
and efficacious, and omnipotent — the mode is unsearchable." 
16. They represent sacramental communion as oral, corporeal. 
Irek^eus : % " How say they that the flesh which is nourished 
by the body and blood of the Lord, falls to corruption? How 
deny they that the flesh which is nourished by the body and 
blood of the Lord, is capable of receiving the gift of God, which 
is life eternal." Tertullian:§ "The flesh is washed (in 
baptism), that the soul may be purified ; the flesh is fed with 
the body and blood of Christ, that the soul may be nurtured 
of God." Cyprian: || "Those mouths, sanctified by heavenly 
food — the body and blood of the Lord." Chrysostom : T 
" Purify thy tongue and lips, which are the portals of the in- 
gress of the Christ. l$o common honor is it that our lips re- 
ceive the body of the Lord." Cyril : ** " Christ dwelleth in us 
corporeally by the communication of His flesh." Augustine : f f 
" It seemed fit to the Holy Ghost, that in honor of so great a 
Sacrament, the body of the Lord should enter the mouth of the 

*Homil. in Matt, 83. f Orth. Fid. IV. 14. 

% Lib. IV. 34; V. 4. g De Resurrect. Cam. 8. 

|| De Laps. §2. \ In I. Cor. xxvii. 

**In John xiii., Lib. X. 

ff Epist. 118, Contr. Adv. leg. et proph. II. 9. 



750 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Christian before any other food. Christ Jesus giving us His flesh 
to eat and His blood to drink, we receive with faithful heart and 
with the mouth ; although it seems more fearful to eat human 
flesh than to perish, more fearful to drink human blood than to 
shed (our own)." Gregory: * " The blood of the Lamb is now 
upon the side -posts, when it is drunken not only with the 
mouth of the body, but also with the mouth of the heart." 
"His blood is poured into the mouths of believers." Leo : f 
" Doubt not of the verity of the body and blood of Christ, for 
that is taken by the mouth which is believed by faith." 

17. They aflirm that the unworthy, whether administrators 
or recipients, impart or partake of the body and blood of Christ. 
Cyprian: " They dare to profane the holy body of the Lord," 
(by giving it to the impenitent). " With polluted mouth he 
drinketh the blood of the Lord. With defiled hands he taketh 
the body of the Lord." Chrysostom : \ "How shall he dare 
to approach the judgment-bar of Christ who has dared with 
impious hands and lips to touch His body." " How can we 
receive the body of Christ with such reproach and contumely." 
Ambrose said to the Emperor Theodosius : § " With what 
rashness dost thou take with thy mouth the cup of precious 
blood, when by the fury of thy words innocent blood has been 
spilt." Augustine:|| "Is it right, that from the mouth of 
Christians, when the body of Christ has entered, should come 
forth the wanton song, as it were the poison of the Devil ? " 
Oecumenius : If " The unworthy with their impure hands re- 
ceive Christ's most sacred body, and bring it to their execrable 
mouth." Leo : ** " With unworthy mouth they receive the 
body of Christ." Theodoretus : ft "To Judas His betrayer, 
also, the Lord imparted His precious body and blood." 

18. They institute a parallel, in certain respects, between the 
incarnation of the second person of the Trinity and the sacra- 
mental presence. Justin : " As Jesus Christ, being through the 
word of God incarnate, had both flesh and blood for our salva- 

* Horn. XXII., Pasch. Dialog. IV. f De jejun. 6. 

% Eph. Horn. I. • ^Tkeodoret. Hist. Eccles. V. 17. 

|| De Tempor. Serm. 215. f In I Cor. xi. 

** De Quadrag. Serm. iv. f f I Cor. xi. 



THE FATHERS. 751 

tion, so also, as we have been taught, the food ... is the flesh and 
blood of the incarnate Jesus." Hilary:* u The Word was 
made flesh, and we through the food of the Lord truly receive 
the Word made flesh." Augustine : f " The Eucharist consists 
of two things — the visible species, and the invisible flesh and 
blood of our Lord — the Sacrament and the thing of the Sacra- 
ment, as the person of Christ consists and is constituted of God 
and man (sicut Christi persona constat et conficitur Deo et 
homine)." Cyprian::): "As in the person of Christ the hu- 
manity was seen and the divinity was hidden, so the divine 
essence infuses itself ineffably by the visible Sacrament." 

19. They affirm in the strongest manner the identity of the 
true body and blood with the body and blood which are given 
in the Supper. Chrysostom : § " That which is in the cup is 
that which flowed from His side ; and of that we are partak- 
ers." Ambrose: || "There is that blood which redeemed His 
people. ... It is His own body and blood we receive." " The 
body (in the Eucharist) is that which is of the Virgin." 

20. They compare the Eucharist with the most stupendous 
miracles under both dispensations, appealing to the miracles 
against the deniers or perverters of the sacramental doctrine. 
Such passages are so numerous and familiar as to require no 
quotation. 

The whole testimony of the Fathers can be arranged into a 
self-harmonizing system accordant with the Lutheran doctrine. 
Neither Romanism nor Calvinism can make even a plausible 
arrangement of this kind on their theories. The Fathers held, 
in the Supper, to the true presence of the elements, and so can- 
not be harmonized with Romish Transubstantiation : they 
taught a true presence of the body and blood of Christ, and so 
cannot be harmonized with the Calvinistic spiritualism. Alike 
in their assertions and negations, they accord with the positive 
doctrine of the Lutheran Church, and the antithesis of that 
doctrine to error. 

So steadfast was the faith of the Church on this point that 

* De Trinit. VIII. 13. f Apud Gratian. de Consecr. II. 48. 

\ Serm. de Sacra. Ccen. § In I. Cor. Horn. XXIV. 

II De Sacram. VI. 5. 



752 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the very heretics, to whose theory the doctrine of the true 
presence was most fatal, did not dare to deny it. 

The Pagan revilers and persecutors of the Church, with their 
clumsy calumny, that the Christians in their assemblies ate 
human flesh covered with meal, bear witness to the truth they 
so coarsely misunderstood. 

The profound impression made by the Christian faith in the 
Eucharistic mystery is shown in the attempts of idolaters to 
imitate and counterfeit it. 

The superstitious views and practices which grew up in the 
Christian Church are evidence of the awful reverence with 
which the Eucharist was regarded. Abuses argue uses, super- 
stitions imply truths, by which their characteristics are in some 
measure conditioned ; and the history of errors in the doctrine 
of the Eucharist strengthens the evidence, already so strong, 
that the doctrine of the true objective presence was the doctrine 
of the earliest and purest Church. 

The Liturgies of the ancient Church testify to the same 
great fact ; and their witness is the more important, as it shows 
in an official form the faith of the Church. In the most 
ancient Liturgy in existence, that contained in the Apostolic 
Constitutions, and which is the general model of all the others, 
the bishop of the congregation is directed, on delivering the 
bread, to say : The body of Christ. The deacon, at the giving 
of the cup, says : The blood of Christ — the Cup of 
Life. The communicant replied, Amen. . In the Lit- 
urgy of St. Make:,* the words are : " The holy body, the precious 
blood of our Lord and God and Saviour." The First Council of 
Tours, a. d. 460, directed these words to be used : " The body and 
blood of our Lord Jesus Christ profit thee to the remission of 
sins and everlasting life." In the Liturgy of St. James, the 
bishop, before participating, prays: " Make me worthy by Thy 
grace, that I, without condemnation, may be partaker of the 
holy body and the precious blood, to the remission of sins and 
life eternal." In the Horolo^ion of the Creek Church is the 
prayer : " Let Thy spotless body be to me for remission of sins, 
and Thy divine blood for the communication of the Holy Spirit, 

* Renaudot. I. 162. 



THE LITURGIES. 753 

and to life eternal." In the Roman Canon : " Free me by Thy 
holy body and blood from all my iniquities, and all evils." 

In the Service of Gregory the Great, the formula of distri- 
bution is : " The body — the blood — of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
preserve thy soul." 

In the time of Charlemagne, the form was: "The body — 
blood — of our Lord Jesus Christ, preserve thy soul unto ever- 
lasting life." 

The Apostolic Constitutions direct that before the Com- 
munion, the deacon shall make proclamation: "Let none of 
the catechumens, none of the unbelievers, none of the hetero- 
dox be present. Let no one come in hypocrisy. Let us all 
stand before the Lord with fear and trembling, to offer our 
sacrifice." The prayer is made : " Send down Thy Holy Spirit, 
that He may show this bread (to be) the body of Thy Christ, 
and this cup the blood of Thy Christ (apopheenee ton arton 
touton soma tou Christou sou)." Here, in the earliest form, the 
true function of the Holy Ghost in the Supper is clearly stated 
— not the consummation of the sacramental mystery, by His 
working, but the illumination of the soul, so that it may in 
faith grasp the great mystery there existent, and may have 
shown to it by the Holy Ghost that the bread and cup are in- 
deed the body and blood of Christ. 

After the Communion, the deacon says: " Having received 
the precious body and the precious blood of Christ, let us give 
thanks to Him who hath accounted us worthy to be partakers 
of these His holy mysteries."* In the Liturgy of St. James, 
after the Communion, the deacon says : " We thank Thee, 
Christ, our God, that Thou hast thought us worthy to be par- 
takers of Thy body and blood, to the forgiveness of sins and 
everlasting life ; " and the bishop says : " Thou hast given us, 
God, Thy sanctification in the partaking of the holy body 
and of the precious blood of Thine only-begotten Son, Jesus 
Christ." The Liturgy of St. Mark: "We render thanks to 
Thee, Master, Lord our God, for the participation of Thy 
holy, undented, immortal, and heavenly mysteries which Thou 
hast given us." 

*Clementis Opera Omnia. Paris, 1857. Constitut. Apostol. L. VIII. xii.-xiv. 

48 



754 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

The Ancient Gallican Missal:* u As we do now show forth 
the verity of this heavenly Sacrament, so may we cleave unto 
the verity itself of our Lord's body and blood." The 
MozARABic:f "Hail, sacred flesh! forever highest sweet- 
ness. I will take the bread of heaven, and call on the name 
of the Lord. . . . Having our strength renewed by Christ's 
body and blood, and being sanctified by the same, we will 
render thanks unto God." The AmbrosianiJ "What we 
have taken with the mouth, Lord, may we receive with 
pure mind ; that of the body and blood of our Lord . . . we 
may have perpetual healing." Through the whole of the 
worship of the Christian ages runs the confession that it is the 
undivided person of Christ to which the heart of the Church 
turns : a Christ who is everywhere God, everywhere man ; a 
Christ in whom dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily ; a 
Christ who has passed through all the heavens, and ascended 
up far above them all, that he might fill all things. 

With these breathings compare the private prayers of the old 
saints which have been left on record, — the prayers of Ambrose, 
Basil, Chrysostom, Damascenus, and Aquinas, — which show 
how lowly, how tender, how trusting is the spirit inspired by 
a healthful recognition of the great abiding mystery of the 
New Dispensation. 

Jesu pie quern nunc velatum adspicio, 
Quando net illud, quod jam sitio, 
Ut te revelata cernens facie 
Visu sim beatus tuse gloriee ? \ 

*Martene: De Antiq. Eccles. Kitibus. Ed. Noviss. Venitiis. 1783. 4 vols. Fol. 
I. 166. f Do. 171. JDo. 175. Martene gives about forty orders of service, all 
having the common element of a complete recognition of the sacramental mystery. 

§ [0 holy Jesus, whom veiled I now behold, when shall that be for which I 
thirst, when, beholding Thee with open face, I shall be blessed in the sight of 
Thy glory ?] The Hymn of Aquinas : Adoro te. 



OBJECTIONS TO THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCTRINE OF 
THE LORD'S SUPPER, AS CONFESSED BY THE LU- 
THERAN CHURCH. 



THE objections to the Lutheran doctrine almost without 
exception involve the false definition of it which is couched 
in the words " Consubstantiation," " Impanation." From the 
time that the passions of men were roused in the x 0bections 
Sacramentarian controversy, these terms of reproach derived from a 

P -i t .... -v-r- -. , false definition. 

were freely used against it. No man used such 
terms more bitterly than Zwingle. Yet not only did Zwingle, 
in his original doctrine, when he rejected Transubstantiation, 
accept, and for years retain, the same Eucharistic doctrine as 
Luther,* but even subsequently to his rejection of the doctrine 
he acknowledged that it had not the offensive characteristics 
he afterward so freely imputed to it. He wrote in , „ 

J L 1. Not origin- 

1526: "You steadfastly affirm that the true flesh any made.— 
of Christ is here eaten, under the bread, but in an Zwmgle - 
ineffable mode " (sed modo quodam ineffabili).f But the moral 
descent of error is very rapid. Before Luther had written a 
line against him, Zwingle had styled the believers in the doc- 
trine of the true presence, " Carnivorse, Anthropophagites, Can- 
nibals," "a stupid race of men;" the doctrine itself he pro- 
nounced " impious, foolish, inhuman," and that its practical 
consequence was " loss of the faith." But so much is confessed 

*See Lampe : Synops. H. E., 1721, 332. Cyprian, Unterricht, v. Kirclil. Verein- 
igung, 1726, 163. Zwingle: Comm. de ver. et fals. relig. Apolog. Libel, de Can. 
Missae. 

f Ad Theod. Billican. et Urb. Rhegius Epistol. respons. Huld. Zwinglii. 
Cyprian : Unterr. 176. 

755 



756 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION 

that Zwingle when he held this doctrine, and Zwingle when he 
yielded it, and was yet comparatively just, acknowledged that 
it taught " an ineffable mode." 

The same is true of (Bcolampadius. He not only at first 
held but zealously defended the same doctrine with Luther ; 
2. (Ecoiampa- defended it against the very charge involved in 
dius - the name, " Consubstantiation." In his sermon on 

the Sacrament of the Eucharist, preached in 1521,* he says: 
" I do not pronounce it a mere figure, such as was the Paschal 
Lamb. Far from us be the blasphemy of attributing to the 
shadow as much as to the light and truth ; and to those figures 
as much as to the most sacred mystery. For this bread is not 
merely a sign, but is the very body of the Lord itself (sed est 
corpus ipsum Domini). We simply confess, therefore, that the 
flesh and blood of Christ are present and contained ; but in 
what manner (quo pacto), we do not seek to discover ; nor is it 
necessary nor useful that we should. . . In what mode, He 
who sits above the heavens, at the right hand of the Father, is 
truly present on the altars, inasmuch as it is a thing which it 
is impossible for us to know, is a matter which should not dis- 
turb us. What wonder is it since we know not in what mode 
Christ, after His resurrection, came into the presence of His 
disciples while the doors were closed? . . . What is that thing 
of inestimable price which is hidden within this covering (intra 
involucrum hoc delitescit) ? It is the true body and true blood 
of our Lord Jesus Christ — that body which was born, suffered, 
died for us, and was afterward glorified in the triumph of the 
Resurrection and Ascension." 

The attitude of Calvin has been already illustrated. At 
Strasburg he took his place among Lutheran ministers, signed 
the Unaltered Augsburg Confession (1539), represented the 
Lutheran Church at various conferences, was charged with 
holding the doctrine of Consubstantiation, was complained of 
at a later period (1557), by the preachers and the Theological 
Faculty at Zurich, as u wishing to unite his doc- 
trine with that of the Augsburg Confession, as in 
the very least degree unlike (rninime dispares)." The same 

* Cyprian: Unterr. 183. 



OBJECTION ANSWERED— LUTHER. 757 

Faculty, in 1572. wrote: "Calvin, of blessed memory, seemed, 
to pious and learned men in France, not to be in unity with 
our Churches in the doctrine of the Lord's Supper." 

The reproach of teaching such a carnal presence as is involved 
in the word Consubstantiation is therefore . an after-thought 
of opponents. How groundless it is, can be made evident by 
a long array of witnesses. " I will call it," says Luther,* " a 
Sacramental Unity, forasmuch as the body of Christ and bread 
are there given us as Sacrament : for there is not a objection 
natural or personal unity, as in God and Christ ; it answered, 
is perhaps also a different unity from that which *" Luther - 
the Dove had with the Holy Ghost, and the Flame with the 
Angel (Exod. iii. 2) — in a word, it is a Sacramental Unity." 
" We are not so insane," says Luther, elsewhere,f " as to believe 
that Christ's body is in this bread, in the gross visible manner 
in which bread is in a basket, or wine in the cup, as the fana- 
tics would like to impute it to us. . . As the Fathers, and we, 
at times, express it, that Christ's body is in the bread, is done 
for the simple purpose of confessing that Christ's body is there. 
This fixed, it might be permitted to say, It is in the bread, or, 
It is the bread, or, It is where the bread is, or as you please 
(wie man will). We will not strive about words, so long as the 
meaning is fixed ; that it is not mere bread we eat in the Sapper, 
but the body of Christ." In 153*7, he wrote to the Swiss : \ 
" In regard to the Sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, 
we have never taught, nor do we now teach, either that Christ 
descends from heaven or from God's right hand, or that He 
ascends, either visibly or invisibly. We stand fast by the 
Article of Faith, ' He ascended into heaven ; He sitteth at the 
right hand of God.' And we commit to the divine omnipo- 
tence, in what way (wie,quomodo) His body and blood are given 
to us in the Supper. . . We do not imagine any ascent or de- 
scent, but merely hold fast in simplicity to His words, This is 
My Body ; This is My Blood." Luther says, in his Larger 

* Werke : Altenb. III. 364 ; Leipz. XIX. 496. (Bek. v. Abendm., 1528.) 
f Werke : Altenb. III. 709; Leipz. XIX. 406. (Serm. v. Sacra., 1526.) 
% Werke : Leipz. XXI. 108 ; Jena, VI. 507 ; Witteb. XII. 205 ; Altenb. VI. 4 ; 
Walch, XVII. 2594. Briefe : De Wette, V. 83 ; Buddeus : 258. 



758 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Confession : "It is rightly and truly said, when the bread is 
shown, touched, or eaten, that Christ's body is shown, touched, 
and eaten." This sentence, perhaps more than any he ever 
wrote, has been urged to show that he held the doctrine of 
Consubstantiation. But that he used these words in "no 
Capernaitish, or natural sense, but in a mystic and sacramental 
sense, to indicate that in the use of this Sacrament the bread 
and body are most presentially united and unitedly present," * 
is very clear from his whole train of thought and the words 
that follow : " This remains fixed, that no one perceives the body 
of Christ, or touches it, or bruises it with the teeth : yet is it 
most sure that what is done to the bread, is, in virtue of the sacra- 
mental Union, rightly and truly attributed to the body of Christ." 
It is very clear that Luther is availing himself, in this line of 
thought, of the distinction made in the doctrine of the person 
of Christ. That is affirmed of the body of Christ in the sacra- 
mental Concrete which is denied of it in the natural abstract 
The consecrated bread is so far sacramentally identified with this 
body, of which it is the Communion, that in a sacramental sense 
that can be affirmed of this body which is not true of it in a 
natural sense. So in Christ Jesus we can say, speaking in the 
personal Concrete, God bled, God died ; that is, such is the per- 
sonal concrete that we can " rightly and truly " make personal 
affirmation in words which, if they expressed a natural abstract, 
would not be true. If the term God is used to designate this 
abstract of nature, it is thus equivalent to divinity, and it is 
heterodox to say divinity, or the divine nature, or God, in 
that sense, suffered. In sacramental concreteness then, not in 
natural abstractness, according to Luther, is the body of Christ 
eaten. What is eaten is both bread and Christ's body. Both 
are eaten by one and the same objective act ; but because of the 
difference in the modes of their presence, and the nature of the 
object — the one being a natural object, present in a natural 
mode, the other a supernatural object, present in a super- 
natural mode, the one objective act is natural in its relation 
to the natural, atid supernatural in its relation to the super- 
natural. So to the eye of the prophet's servant, by one objec- 

*Hutter: Lib. Chr. Concord. Explicat., 625. 



COLLOQUIES WITH THE ZWINGLIANS. 759 

tive act there was a natural vision of the natural hills around 
the city, and a supernatural vision of the supernatural hosts — ■ 
the horses of fire, and chariots of fire. So to the hand of the 
woman, by one objective act there was a natural touch of the 
natural garment of the Saviour, and a supernatural touch of 
the divine virtue, which the garment veiled. So to the blind 
man who washed in the Pool of Siloam, by one objective act 
of washing there was a natural removal of the clay, and a super- 
natural virtue which removed the blindness. In his Book : 
" That the words yet stand firm,"* Luther says: "How it takes 
place. . . we know not, nor should we know. We should be- 
lieve God's word, and not prescribe mode or measure to Him." 
The true intent of our Church, in the language used in regard 
to the Lord's Supper, is shown in the definitions used in con- 
nection with the early efforts at producing harmony with the 
Zwinglians. When the Landgrave of Hesse invited Luther to 
a Colloquy with Zwingle atMarburg (Oct. 1529), Luther replied: 
" Though I cherish little hope of a future peace, yet the dili- 
gence and solicitous care of Your Highness in this „ ■ „ 

O o 2. Colloquies 

matter is very greatly to be praised. . . God help- with the zwing. 
ing me, I shall not permit those, of the adverse 
part, to claim with justice that they are more earnestly desir- 
ous of peace and concord than I am." In that Colloquy, the 
parties were agreed : " That the Sacrament of the Altar is the 
Sacrament of the true body and blood of Jesus Christ, and that 
the spiritual eating and drinking of the body and blood is spe- 
cially (prseeipue) necessary." When Melancthon drew up a brief 
statement of the points of difference between the view of the 
Zwinglians, he speaks of two general modes of the presence 
of the body of Christ, — -the one local, the other the " mode un- 
known (arcano) by which diverse places are simultaneously 
present, as one point to the person Christ. . . Although we 
say that the body of Christ is really present, yet Luther does 
not say that it is present locally, that is, in dimension (mole), 
circumscriptive!^, but by that mode, by which the person of 
Christ, or the whole Christ, is present to His entire Church and 
to all creatures." The comparison of views finally led to the 

*Werke: Jena, III. 341. 



760 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Wittenberg Concord, touching the Supper of the Lord, entered 
into by Bucer, Capito, Musculus, and others originally of the 
Zwinglian party, and Luther, Melancthon, Cruciger, Bugen- 
hagen, Menius, and Myconius. In this Concord, both united 
in declaring : * 

1. " That according to the words of Irenseus, there are two 
things in this Sacrament, — a heavenly and an earthly. They 
believe, therefore, and teach, that with (cum) the bread and 
wine, the body and blood of Christ are truly and essentially 
present, imparted (exhiberi), and taken. 

2. " And although they disapprove of Transubstantiation, 
and do not believe that the body of Christ is locally included 
in the bread, or that it is in any other wise (alioqui,sonst) united 
corporeally with the bread, apart from the participation of the 
Sacrament, yet they confess and believe, that through the 
Sacramental Unity, the bread is Christ's body ; that is, they 
hold that when the bread is given the body of Christ is truly 
present at the same time, and truly given. 

3. "To the unworthy also are truly imparted (exhiberi) the 
body and blood of Christ ; but such receive it to judgment ; for 
they abuse the Sacrament, by receiving it without true repent- 
ance and faith. 

4. " For it was instituted to testify that the grace and bene- 
fits of Christ are applied to those who receive it ; and that 
they are truly inserted into Christ's body, and washed by His 
blood, who truly repent, and comfort themselves by faith in 
Christ. 

5. " They confess that they will hold and teach in all articles 
what has been set forth in the Articles of the Confession " (the 
Augsburg) " and the Apology of the Evangelical Princes." 

In the Heidelberg Discussion (1560), the Fifteenth Thesis 
maintained by the Lutheran divines was this : " We repudiate 
Heidelberg a ^ so those gross and monstrous opinions which some 
Discussion, 1560. f a l se ly impute to us, to wit, Popish transubstantia- 
tion, local inclusion, extension or expansion of the body of 

*Chytr9eus: Hist. A. C. Lat., 1578, 680. Germ., 1580, 374. French, 1582, 
497. Seckendorf: Hist. Luth., lib. iii., p. 133. Loescher : Hist. Motuum, i. 205. 
Rudelbach : Ref. Luth. u. Union, 669. 



BRENTIUS. 761 

Christ, mingling of the bread and wine with the body and 
blood of Christ." * 

Brentius f (1570) belongs to the first order of the men of his 
era, and, as an authoritative witness, is perhaps next to Luther 
himself. He says : "It is not obscure that a human 

. -i • i i Brentius, 1570. 

body can, by its own nature, be in but one place ; 
but this is to be understood as regarding the manner of this 
outward world. Whence also Christ himself, even when, after 
His resurrection, He was in the kingdom of His Father, yet 
when He appeared to His disciples in this world, appeared in 
one place only. But far other is the manner of the heavenly 
kingdom. For in it, as there is no distinction of times, but all 
are one eternal moment, so is there no distinction of places, 
but all are one place, nay, no place, nay, nothing of those things 
which human reason can think — ' which eye hath not seen 
(says Paul), nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart 
of man.' Inasmuch, therefore, as Christ is in the heavenly 
kingdom, and the Supper of Christ also is heavenly, we are not, 
in the celebration of it, to think of a certain magnitude, or little- 
ness, or even local position or circumscription of the body of 
Christ, but every carnal imagination being cast aside, we are 
to rest with obedient faith in the word of Christ." "As we 
have said before, there is here no magnitude or littleness, or 
length or thickness, or any sort of carnal tenuity to be imagined. 
Of a surety as bread and wine are truly present, so also the 
body and blood of Christ are truly present, but each in its own 
mode : the bread and wine are present in a visible and corporeal 
mode, the body and blood in a mode invisible, spiritual, and 
heavenly, and unsearchable by human reason. For as the 
capacity of man cannot grasp in what mode Christ, true God 
and true man, when He ' ascends above all heavens, fills all 
things,' so it cannot reach by its own thoughts in what mode the 
body and blood of Christ are present in the Supper." f " Christ's 
body and blood are present, not transubstantially (as the Papists 

*Grundlich. Wahrhaftig. Historia d. Augs. Conf. Leipz., 1584, fol. 436. Do. 
in Latin, ling, transl. per Godfried, Lipsise, 1585, 4to, 545. 

f Catechesimus pia et util. explicat. illustrat. Witteberg, 1552, 12mo, 661-667. 
Cf : Evang. sec. Joann, Homil. explic. Francf., 1554, fol. 670. 



762 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

dream), nor locally (as some calumniously assert we believe). . . . 
Ours have often, and at large, testified in express words that 
they in no manner attribute local space to the presence of the 
body of Christ in the bread. We are therefore unjustly 
accused of drawing down Christ's body from heaven, or includ- 
ing it locally in the bread, or of making a Christ of many bodies 
and of many places." * "We do not deny that there is a sense 
in which it can be truly said that Christ is on the earth, or in 
the Supper, only according to (juxta) the divine nature '. . .that 
is, though Christ, true God and man, fills all things both by 
His divinity and humanity, yet He has not the majesty ori- 
ginally from the humanity itself, which by its own nature can 
only be in one place, but has it alone from the divinity, from 
which however the humanity is in no place separated." f " As 
a thousand years before God are scarce one day, nay rather, 
not one moment, so a thousand places are before Him, not a 
thousand places, but rather the minutest point." J " All places 
above and beneath are to Him one place, nay, no place, nay, no 
point or place. . . Such terms applied to Him, as ' filling ' the 
heavens, 'being everywhere,' ' dwelling,' ' descending,' 'ascend- 
ing,' are but transfers of metaphor." § 

The Formula of Concord || (1580), in defining its own posi- 
tion, quotes and indorses Luther's words : " Christ's body has 
three modes of presence : First. The comprehensible, corporeal 
mode, such as He used when He was on earth, — the local. To 
this mode of presence the Scripture refers when it says, Christ 
Formula of bas left the world. Second. In another incompre- 
concord, 1580. hensible and spiritual mode it can be present 
illocally. Moreover, it can be present in a divine and heavenly 
mode, since it is one person with God." The current error 
about this view of our Church is, that she holds that the body 
and blood of Christ are present in the first of these modes, — 

*De personali Unione, Ttibingae, 1561, 4to, 1, 2. 

f Sententia de Libello Bullinger, Tiibingse, 1561, 4to, XII. See also his book: 
"De Majestate Domini et de vera prsesentia Corp. et Sang, ejus Francofort, 
1562, 4to ; " and his "Recognitio Prophetic, et Apostol. Doctrinse, Tiibingae, 1564." 

% In Lib. I Sam. Horn. XIV. g Contra Asotum. Peric. II. 

II 667, 98-103. 






CHEMNITZ. 763 

a view she entirely rejects. Though she denies that this pres- 
ence is merely spiritual, — if the word spiritual means such as is 
wrought by our spirit, our meditations, our faith, — yet, over 
against all carnal or local presence, she maintains that it is 
spiritual. " When," says the Formula of Concord, * " Dr. 
Luther or we use this word ' spiritually,' in reference to this 
matter, we mean that spiritual, supernatural, heavenly mode, 
according to which Christ is present at the Holy Supper. . . . 
By that word ' spiritually,' we design to exclude those Caper- 
naitish imaginings of a gross and carnal presence, which, after 
so many public protestations on the part of our Churches, the 
Sacramentarians still try to fin on them. In this sense we say 
that the body and blood of Christ in the Supper is received, 
eaten, and drunken spiritually. . . . The mode is spiritual ." 
" We reject and condemn, with unanimous consent, the Papal 
Transubstantiation." " We reject and condemn with heart 
and mouth, as false and full of fraud, first of all, the Popish 
Transubstantiation." "It is said that the body and blood of 
Christ are ' under the form of bread and wine,' and 4 in the 
Supper,' not to imply a local conjunction or presence, but for 
other and very different reasons." " Our first reason for using 
the phrases, that the body of Christ is under, with, in, the 
bread, is by them to reject the Popish Transubstantiation, and 
to set forth that the substance of the bread is unchanged." 
The words " under " and " in " are meant to teach that " the 
bread which we break, and the cup we bless, are the Communion 
of the body and blood of Christ ; " that is, communicate that 
body and blood to us, — or, in other words, we receive the 
body and blood, with the bread and wine, or " in " or " under " 
them as a medium. By, in, with, and under the act of receiv- 
ing the sacramental bread and wine truly and naturally, we 
receive the body and blood of Christ, substantially present, 
truly and supernaturally, after a heavenly and spiritual manner. 
Chemnitz (fl586) : f " -All these passages of Scripture with 
wonderful accord show, prove, and confirm the proper and 
simple doctrine that the Lord's Supper consists 

1 n i i t i m -i -i • Chemnitz, 1586. 

not only ot the outward symbols ot bread and wine, 

*670, 105, 108; 641, 34; 541, 22. f De Fundam. SS. Coense. eh. IX. 



764 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

but also of the very body and blood of our Lord. . . . But by 
what mode (quo modo) this takes place, or can take place, it is 
not for me to search oat (meum non est inquire re). " 

Andrews (fl590),* to whom more, perhaps, than to any other 

theologian, we owe the Formula of Concord, says : " From the 

sinister and perverted interpretation of Luther's 

Andrew, 1590. . x r 

meaning, as if he taught that Christ s body is 
affixed to the bread, or imprisoned in it, both he and those who 
stand with him are far removed. To say and teach that the 
bread signifies the body of Christ, is a figure, is also a sign of 
the body of Christ, if the terms be rightly understood, dero- 
gates nothing from the meaning of our Lord's words. For 
who denies that the bread is a figure or sign of the body of 
Christ ? . . . But if any one contend that the bread is a naked 
sign, an empty figure, and signification, of a body not present 
but absent, he sets forth a doctrine at war with the teachings 
of Christ and of Paul. . . . The word ' corporeally ' may be 
used in three ways : First. Naturally, as the Capernaites con- 
strued our Lord's words, when He spoke of ' eating His flesh 
and drinking His blood.' Second. To indicate that not naked 
signs and figures of the body of Christ are present, but that 
there is given to us with the bread that very body which was 
crucified for us. Third. To mark the outward and corporate 
signs, bread and wine, inasmuch as Christ imparts to us His 
body, spiritual food, corporeally; that is, with corporeal things 
or signs. For bread and wine are corporate things, with which 
at the same time is extended spiritual food and drink. . . . 
Luther used the terms to teach that with the bread and wine 
are imparted the body and blood of Christ as heavenly food, 
with which the soul is refreshed and the body strengthened 
to immortality. . . . By the word c spiritually,' we understand 
is indicated a mode which is heavenly and spiritual, above the 
order of nature; a mode which can only be grasped by faith; a 
mode beyond the reach of our present reason and understand- 
ing — one of God's greatest mysteries. . . . The mode is no 
natural one, but recondite and heavenly. . . . With this mys- 
tery, locality has nothing to do. . . . If it had, one of these 

*De Coena Domini. Francof. 1559, 12mo. 27, 29, 33, 36, 40, 48, 72, 76. 



AND RE j®. 765 

opinions would necessarily follow: Either that the body of 
Christ is extended into all places, or that it is hurried from one 
place to another, or that innumerable bodies of Christ are 
daily everywhere made from particles of bread (the Popish 
halucination). But each one of these views weakens and utterly 
takes away the presence of the body of Christ. If the body of 
Christ were expanded into alrplaces of the world, it would not 
be communicated entire anywhere, but one part would be dis- 
tributed here, another there. That the body of Christ is borne 
from place to place, and passes into the bread, is an affirmation 
which could only be made by one who had lost his senses ; and 
were this not so, the theory would imply that the body cannot 
be present in alrplaces at the same moment. Add to this that 
such a doctrine is directly in conflict with Holy Scripture. As 
to the third view, we have shown in our previous discussion how 
contradictory, how abhorrent to the Christian religion and our 
faith, is the idea that many bodies are formed of the substance 
of bread, as by a prayer of magic. 

" Set therefore before thee that Christ who is neither ex- 
tended into all places nor borne from one place to another : 
but who sitteth at the right hand of the Father, and there im- 
parts to thee His flesh and blood. ... Is it not possible for 
thee to understand this mystery, in what manner divine power 
effects this ? This mystery faith alone grasps. In what way 
(quo pacto) body and blood are communicated to us in this 
Sacrament is so great a thing that the mind of man in this life 
cannot comprehend it. ... The true body and blood of Christ 
are given in a heavenly and spiritual way which He knows, 
and which sorrowing and agitated consciences experience, and 
which surpasses the power of the mind of man. . . . The whole 
Christ is given to us in the Sacrament that we may be one flesh 
with Him." 

In the Colloquy at Montbeliard * (1586), between Beza, as 
the representative of Calvinism, and Andrese, the great 
Lutheran divine laid down first in his Theses, and afterwards 
repeatedly in the discussion, the principle of a supernatural 

* Acta Colloq. Mont. Belligart. 1594, 4to, 3, 5, 16, 17. Gesprsech.etc, Tubing. 
1587, 4to, 4, 22, 25. 



766 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

and heavenly presence over against a presence which is natural, 
physical, and earthly. In his conversation with the Baron de 
Cleroan, previous to the Colloquy, Andreee said: "The mode 
of the presence, inasmuch as it is not natural or physical, but 
heavenly and divine, and the eating, not Capernaitish, is to he 
committed to God and His omnipotence. . . . Beza and his 
adherents charge the Churches 'of the Augsburg Confession 
with teaching a Cyclopian and Capernaitish eating — a bruis- 
ing of Christ's body with the teeth, and a swallowing it. Such 
an idea never entered the mind of Luther, or of our Church. 
. . . From all the writings of our divines not a letter can be 
produced to sustain such a charge ; on the contrary, they have 
constantly, in most unmistakable language, condemned the idea 
of such an eating." In the Theses prepared for the Wirtem- 
berg Theologians by Andrew, the Fourth says : " We do not 
hold a physical and local presence or inclusion of the body and 
blood of Christ." The Tenth, and last, affirms : " The mode in 
which the body and blood are present is not expressed in 
Scripture ; wherefore we can only affirm so much in regard 
to it that it is supernatural, and incomprehensible to human 
reason. . . . Therefore in this divine Mystery we lead our reason 
captive, and with simple faith and quiet conscience rest on the 
words of Christ." 

Hutter (f 1611) : * " "When we use the particles ' in, with, 
under,' we understand no local inclusion whatever, either Tran- 
substantiation or Consubstantiation." " Hence is clear the 
odious falsity of those who charge our churches with teaching 
that ' the bread of the Eucharist is literally and substantially 
the body of Christ ; ' that c the bread and body con- 

Hutter, 1611. J 7 J . , 

stitute one substance ; that ' the body of Christ in 
itself (per se), and literally, is bruised by the teeth,' and all other 
monstrous absurdities (portentosa absurda) of a similar nature. 
For we fearlessly appeal to God, the searcher of hearts and the 
judge of consciences, as an infallible witness, that neither by 
Luther nor any of ours was such a thing ever said, written, 
or thought of." f 

* Libri Christianae Concordiee, Explicatio, Witteberg, 1608, 669. 
fDo. 525, 624. 



Meutzer, 1627. 



OSIANDER—CARPZOV. 767 

Andrew Osiander (Chancellor of the University of Tubin- 
gen) (f 1617) : " Our theologians for years long have strenu- 
ously denied and powerfully confuted the doctrine 
of a local inclusion, or physical connection of the 
body and bread, or consubstantiation. "We believe in no im- 
panation, subpanation, companation,or consubstantiation of the 
body of Christ ; no physical or local inclusion or conjoining of 
bread and body, as our adversaries, in manifest calumnies, 
allege against us. The expressions in, with, and under are 
used, first, in order to proscribe the monstrous doctrine of 
Transubstantiation, and secondly, to assert a true presence 
over against the doctrine that the Lord's Supper is a mere 
sign."* 

Mentzer (f 1627) : f " There is no local concealment of 
Christ's body, or inclusion of particles of matter under the 
bread. Far from us be it that any believer should 
regard Christ's body as present in a physical or 
natural mode. The eating and drinking are not natural or 
Capernaitish, but mystical or sacramental." 

John Gerhard (f 1637) : % " 0* 1 account of the calumnies of 
our adversaries, we would note that we do not believe in im- 
panation^ nor in Consubstantiation, nor in any physical or local 
presence. Some of our writers, adopting a phrase from Cyril, 
have called the presence a bodily % one ; but they use 
that term by no means to designate the mode of 
presence, but simply the object " (to show what is present, to 
wit, the body of Christ, but not how it is present), " nor have 
they at all meant by this that the body of Christ is present in 
a bodily and quantitative manner." " We believe in no con- 
substantiative presence of the body and blood. Far from us be 
that figment. The heavenly thing and the earthly thing in 
the Lord's Supper are not present with each other physically 
and naturally" \ 

Carpzov (f 1657) : T " To compress into a few words what is 

*Disputat. xiii., Ex Concord. Libro. Erancofurt, 1611, pages 280, 288. 
| Exeges. Aug. Conf. % Loci (Cotta) x. 165. 

\ Corporalem. || See also Harmonia Evang., ii. 1097, 

\ Isagoge, 345-350. 



768 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

most important in regard to this presence, we would remark : 

1. That it is not finite, either physical, or local, or definite, but 

infinite and divine. 2. That as there is not one 

Carpzov, 1657. . 

mode only of divme presence, but that presence 
may be general, or gracious, or glorious, as the scholastics dis- 
tinguish it, so this presence (of the body and blood of Christ) 
is neither to be referred to the general nor the glorious, but to 
the gracious ; so that it constitutes that special degree of this 
gracious presence which is styled sacramental. That which is 
supernatural is also true and real. When this presence is called 
substantial and bodily, those words designate not the mode of 
presence, but the object. When the words in, with, under, 
are used, our traducers know, as w T ell as they know their own 
fingers, that they do not signify a Consubstantiation, local 
co-existence, or impanation. The charge that we hold a local 
inclusion, or Consubstantiation,is a calumny. The eating and 
drinking are not physical, but mystical and sacramental. An 
action is not necessarily figurative because it is not physical." 
Mus-eus (f 1681) : * " On the question, By what mode (quo 
modo) that which we receive and eat and drink in the Holy 
Supper is Christ's body and blood, we freely confess our ignor- 
ance." " The sacramental eating is sometimes 

MU88BU8, 1681. . . . . ° 

called spiritual, that is, an eating not gross, not 
carnal, but wholly incomprehensible — the mode is supernatural, 
and beyond the grasp of the mind of man. . . . That gross and 
carnal eating which the Capernaites (John vi.) imagined is 
denied by the Formula of Concord, and when Calvinists attri- 
bute this view to us, they are guilty of calumny. "f 

Scherzeb, (f 1683) : X To the objection that the particles " in, 
with, under, imply an inclusion of the body of Christ in the 

bread, and a concealing of it under the bread, and 

Scherzer, 1683. ' to 

a consequent reduction of the body to the propor- 
tion and dimensions of the bread," he says : I. " From presence 
to locality, no inference can be drawn. Those particles imply 
presence, not locality. For they are exhibitive, not inclusive. 

*De Sacra. Coena. Jenae, 1664, 85. 

f Praslect. in Epitom. Formul. Concord. Jense, 1701, 4to, 259, 260. 
. % Collegium Anti-Calvinianum, Lipsiae, 1704, 4to, 606, 630, 632. 



CALOVIUS— Q UENSTED T. 769 

II. Quantitative proportion is required to local inclusion, but 
not to sacramental presence. In the German hymn, the phrase : 
''Hidden in the bread so small (Verborgen inbrodso klein)',the 
'Hidden,' notes a mystic hiding — that the body of Christ is 
not open to the senses ; not a physical one, which is local ; the 
words ' so small,' are a limitation of the bread, not of the body." 
He .shows that Calvin, Beza, and others of the Calvinistic 
school, use these particles also. " By oral, we do not mean cor- 
poreal, in the Zwinglian sense. . . . Corporeal eating, in the 
Zwinglian sense, we execrate (execramur)." 

Calovius (f 1686) : * " The m.ode is ineffable, and indescrib- 
able by us. We distinguish between a natural, a personal, and 
a sacramental presence, in which last sense only the 

. , „ _,. . f . „, . J . Calovius, 1686. 

body or Christ is present. . . . Ihere is no question 
in regard to a Capernaitish eating and drinking, such as some 
of the hearers of our Lord at Capernaum dreamed of (John vi. 
21) ; as if Christ had taught a deglutition of His body ... a 
swallowing of His blood. This delirium, our adversaries are 
accustomed to charge upon us falsely and calumniously. . . . 
The mode is not natural, but supernatural. . . . The bread is 
received in the common, natural manner ; the body of Christ in 
the mystic, supernatural manner. . . . We do not assert any 
local conjunction, any fusion of essences, or Consubstantiation, as 
our adversaries attribute it to us ; as if we imagined that the 
bread and the body of Christ pass into one mass. We do not 
say that the body is included in the bread, but only that there 
is a mystic and sacramental conjunction of substance with sub- 
stance, without any insubstantiation or consubstantiation." 

Quenstedt (f 1688) f : " The manducation and drinking are 
called oral, not with reference to the mode, but to the organ. 
Luther calls it corporeal ; but this form of expres- 

L ' r Quenstedt, 1638. 

sion is not to be understood of the mode, as if this 
spiritual food were taken in a natural mode as other food. . . . 
Of the one sacramental or oral eating and drinking there are 
two modes — the physical and hyper-physical. . . . The body and 

* Synopsis Controversiarum, Wittenb. 1685, 4to. Pp. 793, 814. See also Calovii: 
Apodixis Artie. Fid. Wittenb. 1699, 4to. P. 385. 

f Theologia. Didactico-Polem. Lipsise, 1715, Fol. II., 1223, 1231, 1232. 
49 



770 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

blood of Christ are not eaten and drunken in a physical mode. 
. . . The mode of the presence of the body and blood is mystic, 
supernatural, and heavenly. . . . The body of Christ is spiritual 
food, nourishing us not to this life, but to the spiritual and 
heavenly life. . . . The body of Christ does not enter the mouth, 
as if moved from without, it entered-locally, deserting its former 
place, and taking a new one in the mouth. . . . There is no dis- 
traction to be feared in that food which is present with a divine 
presence. Each believer enjoys God as the highest good, but 
the same presence is communicated to the flesh of Christ." 

Baier, J. G. (f 1695)* : " The sacramental union is neither 

substantial, nor personal, nor local. Hence it is manifest that 

impanation and Consubstantiation, which are charged 

Baier, 1695. r . ° 

upon Lutherans by enemies, are utterly excluded. 
There is no sensible or natural eating of the body of Christ. 
Alike the presence and the eating and drinking of the body 
and blood of Christ are insensible, supernatural, unknown to 
the human mind, and incomprehensible. As to the mode in 
which the body and blood of Christ are present and received in 
the Supper, we may acknowledge our ignorance, while we firmly 
hold to the fact.'" The same distinguished writer published a 
dissertation on " Impanation and Consubstantiation," which is 
entirely devoted to the vindication of our Church from the 
charge of holding these errors, f 

Leibnitz (f 1716)4 distinguished as a profound theological 
thinker, as well as a philosopher of the highest 
order, says : " Those who receive the Evangelical 
(Lutheran) faith by no means approve the doctrine of Consub- 
stantiation, or of impanation, nor can any one impute it to 
them, unless from a misunderstanding of what they hold." 

Buddeus (f 1728) : " All who understand the doctrines of 
our Church know that with our whole soul we abhor the 

DOCTRINE OF CONSUBSTANTIATION AND OF A GROSS UBIQUITY OF THE 

flesh of Christ. They are greatly mistaken who suppose 

*Theolog. Positiv. Lipsise, 1750, p. 6G1. 

f Dissertatio Historica-theologica de Impanat. et Consubstantiat. 
J Conformite de la foy avec raison, § xviii. Dissertatio de Conformitate. 
Tubingen, 1771. 



Leibnitz, 1716. 



ROMAN CATHOLIC WRITERS. 771 

the doctrine of impanation to be the doctrine of Luther and 
of our Church. The doctrine of impanation, if we distin- 
guish it from that of assumption, can mean nothing else than 
a local inclusion of the body of Christ in the bread. To admit 
such a doctrine would be to admit the grossest 

J Buddeus, 1728. 

absurdities ; they, therefore, who impute it to our 
Church, prove only their ignorance of our doctrine. In either 
sense, in which the word Consubstantiation can be taken, the 
doctrine cannot, in any respect, be attributed to our Church ; 
it was always far from the mind of our Church. The sacra- 
mental union is one which reason cannot comprehend, and the 
taking, eating, and drinking are done in sublime mystery."* 
Cotta (f 1779) f makes the following remarks upon the 
different theories of sacramental union : " By impanation is 
meant a local inclusion of the body and blood in 

J Cotta, 1779. 

the bread and wine. Gerhard has rightly noted 
that the theologians of our Church utterly abhor this error. 
The particles in, with, under are not used to express a local 
inclusion. As our theologians reject impanation, so also they 
reject the doctrine of Consubstantiation. This word is taken 
in two senses. It denotes sometimes a local conjunction of two 
bodies ; sometimes a commingling or coalescence into one substance 
or mass. But in neither sense can that monstrous dogma of Con- 
substantiation be attributed to our Church ; for Lutherans 
believe neither in a local conjunction nor commixture of bread 
and Christ's body, nor of wine and Christ's blood." 

We could multiply testimony on this point almost without 
end. No great dogmatician of our Church, who has treated 
of the Lord's Supper at all, has failed to protest in some form 
against the charge we are considering. 

The less candid or less informed among the Roman Catholic 
writers have made the same groundless charge against our 
Church, while other writers in the same Church Roman Catho . 
have acknowledged the falsity of it. One example lic writers, 
of the former will suffice. 

* Miscellanea, ii. 86, seq. Catechet. Theologia, ii. 656. Instit. Theol. Dogm. 
v. i. xv. 

f In Gerhard's Loci, x. 165. 



772 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Perrone * says of the Lutherans : " Some of them have 

brought in the doctrine of hypostatic union of the incarnate 

"Word with the bread, which union they call im- 

Perrone. </ 

panation ; others aflirm a consubstantiation, as they 
call it, or a commixture or concomitance." Perrone has not 
only been following Romish guides, but he has selected the 
worst among them. 

Becan (f 1624) f says : " Luther seems to assert impanation ; " 
but even this, he goes on to show, is not true of the Lutheran 
Becan, 1624. Church. Bellarmin (f 1621) J : " Luther insinu- 
Beiiarmin,i62i. a j- es the impanation of Rupert and John of Paris, 
but does not state it explicitly." He then goes on to show 
that Martin Chemnitz and the other Lutherans did not hold 
this view. 

Moehler § : " Luther had already rejected the doctrine of 

transubstantiation ; but he still continued, with his accustomed 

coarseness and violence, yet with srreat acuteness 

Moehler, 183S. ... ' J -, n , . „ . 

and most brilliant success, to defend against Zwni- 
glius the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. For when- 
ever the doctrinal truth is in any degree on his side, he is 
always an incomparable disputant, and what he puts forth on 
this subject in his controversial writings is still deserving of 
attention." 

Cardinal Wiseman || refers to " consubstantiation or com/pana- 
tion in the chrysalis proposition " (the Tenth Article of the 
Augsburg Confession), "in which we must try to suppose it 
originally contained." The cardinal means that 
the Confession " does not so much impugn the doc- 
trine of transubstantiation as leave it aside ; " but that if it 
does not leave transubstantiation an open question, it teaches 
consubstantiation; and that, out of deference to its friends, he is 
willing, in his good nature, to try to think the doctrine is there. 
But it is worthy of note that in the cardinal's whole argument 
in " The Real Presence proved from Scripture" there is no posi- 

^Praelect. Theologic. L. Ill, j Manual Controvers. L. II. 
% Lib. III. de Euck. Ch. XL § Symbolism. Transl. by Robertson. \ xxxv. 
|| The Real Presence of the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the 
Blessed Eucharist proved from Scripture. Lond. 1836. Lects. II. and VIII. 






ROMAN CATHOLIC DIVINES. 773 

tion taken which involves the doctrine of trans ubstantiati on. 
The ablest parts of the book are a far better defence of the 
Lutheran doctrine than of the Roman Catholic. Cardinal 
Wiseman was too able a controversialist to attempt to identify 
in the argument (whatever be might assume in the definition) the 
doctrine of transubstantiation with the doctrine of a real pres- 
ence. He argues exclusively from Scripture for the latter, and 
merely takes for granted the former. This he admits in his 
closing lecture : " In concluding these lectures on the Scrip- 
tural proofs of the real presence, I will simply say. that 
throughout them I have spoken of the doctrine " (the real 
presence) " as synonymous with transubstantiation. For as by 
the real presence I have understood a corporeal presence, to the 
exclusion of all other substance, it is evident that the one is, in 
truth, equivalent to the other. On this account I have con- 
tended for the literal meaning of our Saviour's words, leaving 
it as a matter of inference that the Eucharist, after conse- 
cration, is the body and blood of Christ." 

The most judicious Romish controversialists, like the cardi- 
nal, separate the two questions. Bouvier * and Perrone,f for 
example, prove, in the first article, " the real pres- 
ence ; " in the second, they discuss the " mode of the 
real presence — transubstantiation." The fact is that the two 
lines of argument are directly contradictory. The processes 
of exegesis which establish the doctrine of the true presence 
overthrow the doctrine of transubstantiation. The Romanist 
is on the Lutheran ground when he proves the first ; he is on 
the Calvinistic ground when he attempts to prove the second. 

Many of the ablest divines of the Calvinistic Churches have 
acknowledged the libellous character of the charge Admissions of 
that the Lutheran Church holds the doctrine of calvinistic v\- 
Consubstantiation. While Bucer (f 1551) was 
still with the Zwinglians, he wrote (1530) to Luther : " You do 
not maintain that Christ is in the bread locally ; and you ac- 
knowledge that though Christ exists in one place of heaven in 
the mode of a body, yet he can be truly present in the Supper, 

*Institut. Theolog. Sept. Edit. Parisiis, 1850. III. 3, 31. 
f Praelectiones Theologies. Paris, 1852. II. 155, 208. 



Bouvier, 1854. 



774 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

through the words and symbols." In his Retractation he 
says : " To Luther, and those who stood with him, was 
attributed a grosser doctriue concerning the presence and 
reception of the Lord in the Supper than that which I 
afterwards found, and now testify, they ever held. I disap- 
proved of certain forms of speech, as, that the sacraments con- 
firmed faith and strengthened the conscience, that Christ 
was received in the sacrament, and that this reception was 
corporeal : which forms I now acknowledge I can use piously 
Bucer. an( ^ profitably."* Wolfgang Musculus (f 1563) f : 

Muscuius. " I do not think that any one ever said that the 
bread is naturally or personally the body of our 
Lord ; and Luther himself, of pious memory, expressly denied 
both modes." Whitaker ( fl595) % : " Luther taught no per- 
sonal union of the flesh of Christ with the bread." 

Salmasius (f 1653) : § " Consubstantiation, or fusion of na- 
tures, is the commixtion of two substances as it were into one ; 
but it is not this which the followers of Luther believe ; for 
they maintain the co-existence of two substances distinct in 
two subjects. It is the co-existence, rather, of the two sub- 

saimasius. stances than their consubstantiation." Nothing 
stapfer. would be easier than to multiply such citations. 
Some have been given in other parts of this work, and with 
one more we will close our illustrations of this point. "We 
shall quote from Stapfer, who, probably beyond any other of 
the writers of Polemics, is a favorite among Calvinists. He 
first states || the points in which Calvinists and Lutherans 
agree on the Lord's Supper : " They agree, 

" a. That the bread is not changed into the body of Christ : 
after the consecration the outward signs remain bread and wine. 

* Given in Verpoorten: Comment. Histor. de Martino Bucero. Coburg, 1709. 
\ xx. xxiii. 

f Loci Comm. Theolog. Bern, 1560, 1583. Folio, 771. Quoted in Baier : De 
Impanat. 13. Musculus was originally of the Strasburg school. His Loci are 
of the Helvetic type. 

% Prael. de Sacr. Franc. 1624, 561. Quoted in Baier, 13. 

\ Simpl. Verin. sive Claudii Salmasii De Transubstant. Ed. Sec. Lugdun. Bat. 
1660, p. 509. 

|| Institut. Theolog. Polemic. Universae. Tigur, 1748, 12mo, V. 227. 



ADMISSIONS OF CALVINISTIC DIVINES. 775 

" b. The bread is not to be adored. 

" c. The Sacrifice of the Mass is an invention which casts 
contempt on the Sacrifice of the Cross. 

" d. The carrying about of the host in processions is absurd 
and idolatrous. 

" e. The mutilation of the Supper, by giving only the bread, 
is impious, and contrary to the original institution. 

"/. The use and virtue of the Sacrament is not dependent 
on the intention of the consecrator. 

" g. The body and blood of Christ are present verily and 
really in the Eucharist, not to our soul only, but also to our 
body. They are present by power and efficacy. 

" h. Only believers, by means of the right use of this Sacrament, 
are made partakers of the fruits of the sufferings and death of 
Christ ; unbelievers receive no benefit. 

" They differ in these respects : 

" a. The brethren of the Augsburg Confession teach : That 
the body and blood of Christ are present with the signs in the 
Supper substantially and corporeally. 

" But here it is to be observed that these brethren do not 
mean that there is any consubstantiation or impanation. On 
the contrary, Pfaff, the venerable Chancellor of Tubingen, 
protests, in their name, against such an idea. He says : * 
4 All ours agree that the body of Christ is not in the Eucharist 
by act of that finite nature of its own, according to which it 
is now only in a certain " pou" (somewhere) of the heavens ; 
and this remains that the body of Christ is not in the world, 
nor in the Eucharist, by diffusion or extension, by expansion 
or location, by circumscription or natural mode. Yet is the 
body of Christ really present in the Holy Supper. But the 
inquisitive may ask, How? I answer, our theologians, who 
have rightly weighed the matter, say that the body and blood 
of Christ are present in" the Holy Supper according to the 
omnipresence imparted to the flesh of Christ by virtue of the 
personal union, and are sacramentally united with the Eu- 
charistic symbols, the bread and wine ; that is, are so united, 
that of the divine institution, these symbols are not symbols 

* Instit. Theol. Dogm. et Moral. III. iii. 740, 743. 



776 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION 

and figures of an absent thing, but of a thing most present, to 
wit, the body and blood of Christ, which are not figurative, 
but most real and substantial. Wherefore the body and blood 
of Christ are present, but not by a presence of their own — a 
natural and cohesive, circumscriptive and local, diffusive and 
extensive presence, according to which other bodies are said 
to be present — but by a divine presence, a presence through 
the conjunction of the Logos with the fiesh of Christ. We, 
rejecting all other modes of a real Eucharistic presence, hold, 
in accordance with our Symbolical books, that union alone 
according to which the body and blood of Christ, by act of 
the divine person, in which they subsist, are present with the 
Eucharistic symbols. We repeat, therefore, all those of the 
Reformed do wrongly who attribute to us the doctrine of con- 
substantiation, against whom we solemnly protest.' 

" b. The adherents of the Augsburg Confession hold that the 
true and substantial body and blood of Christ . . are received 
by unbelievers as well as by believers, orally. Pfaff thus ex- 
presses it : c Though the participation be oral, yet the mode is 
spiritual; that is, is not natural, not corporeal, not carnal. 7 " 

Not only however have candid men of other Churches repu- 
diated the false charge made against our Church, but there 
have not been wanting those, not of our Communion, who have 
given the most effectual denial of these charges by approach- 
ing very closely to the doctrine which has been maligned, or by 
accepting it unreservedly.* 

The Lutheran Church has been charged with self-contradiction 

in her interpretation of the words of the Eucharist in this 

respect, that, contending that the words " This is 

TMuhe^exegesis m y body" are not figurative, she yet considers that 

is seif-contradic- there is a figure in the second part of the narrative 

tory — answered. 

of the Lord's Supper, as set forth by St. Luke, xxii. 

*See, for example, the remarks of Theremin, the Fenelon of the Reformed 
Church (Adalbert's Confession), and of Alexander Knox, who was so profound 
and vigorous as a writer, and so rich in deep Christian experience: " Treatise 
on the Use and Import of the Eucharistic Symbols," in "Remains." 3d edition, 
London, 1844. 



OBJECTION, 777 

20 : that when our Lord says : " This cup (is) the New Testa- 
ment in my blood," the word " cup " is used figuratively for 
" contents of the cup ; " and that we do not hold that the cup 
is literally the New Testament. If we allow a figure in the 
second part, does it not follow that there may be a figure in 
the first ? To this we answer, First. Either the modes of ex- 
pression in the two parts are grammatically and rhetorically 
parallel, or they are not. If they are not parallel, there not 
only can be no inconsistency in different modes of interpreting, 
but they must be interpreted differently. If they are parallel, 
then both doctrines are bound to authenticate themselves by 
perfect consistency in the mode of interpreting. Both agree 
that the word " cup " involves " contents of the cup." Now 
treat them as parallel, and on the Calvinistic view results logi- 
cally , " The contents of this bread is my body, the contents of 
this cup is my blood, or, the New Testament in my blood " — 
that is, they reach the Lutheran view. If Lutherans are in- 
consistent here, it is certainly not that they fear to lose by con- 
sistency. 

We at least accept the result of our exegesis of the word 
" cup," (which our opponents admit is here right,) whether it 
be consistent with our former exegesis or not. If any man 
believes that the " contents of the cup " is the blood of Christ, 
he can hardly refrain from believing that the bread is the Com- 
munion of His body. But our opponents will no more accept 
the necessary consequence of our exegesis where it coincides 
with their own, than where it differs ; for while on their own 
exegesis, with which they claim that on this point ours is iden- 
tical, the " cup " means " contents of the cup ; " to avoid the 
necessary inference, or rather the direct statement, that the 
" contents of the cup " is Christ's blood, they go on to say, 
" the contents of the cup " we know to be wine ; the cup there- 
fore really means, not in general the a contents of the cup," 
but specifically "wine." The word " cup," as such, never 
means " wine." When Jesus says of the cup, " This cup 
is the New Testament in my blood," the meaning they 
give it is, after all, not as Lutherans believe, that the a con- 
tents of the cup " is the New Testament in Christ's blood, 



778 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

but that " this wine is like the New Testament in Christ's 
blood, or the pouring out of this wine like the pouring out of 
the New Testament — or of the blood which is its constituting 
cause." The interpretation, therefore, of the word " cup," 
which they grant to be a correct one, if legitimately accepted, 
overthrows their doctrine. 

But this still leaves untouched the point of the alleged incon- 
sistency between the principles on which our Church interprets 
the " first " and " second " parts of the formula of the Lord's 
Supper. But our Church does not believe, as the alleged incon- 
sistency would involve, that there is a rhetorical figure in the 
words, " This is my blood," or, " This cup is the New Testament 
in my blood." If, in a case fairly parallel, we acknowledge in 
the second part of the formula what we denied in the first, 
then, and then only, could we be charged with inconsistency. 
But in this case there is no parallel whatever, nor even the 
semblance of inconsistency. We do not interpret any word of 
the " second " part of the formula metaphorically, and there- 
fore cannot be inconsistent with our denial of a metaphor in 
the " first." We do not interpret the word " cup " to mean 
" sign," " symbol," or " figure " of cup ; but because a literal 
cup actually contains and conveys its literal contents, so that 
you cannot receive the contents without receiving the cup, nor 
the cup, without receiving the contents ; they are so identified, 
that, without dreaming of a departure from the prose of every- 
day life, all the cultivated languages of men give the name 
" cup " both to the thing containing and the thing contained. 
There is, however, this difference — that the thing designed to 
contain bears the name u cup " even when empty, but the 
thing contained bears the name " cup " only in its relations 
as contained. A wine-cup may hold no wine ; a cup of wine 
involves both wine as contained, and a cup as containing. The 
word " cup " may mean, without metaphor : First. The vessel 
meant to contain liquids, whether they be in it or not. Second. 
The liquid which is contained in such a vessel , or is imparted 
by it. Third. The vessel and liquid together. Before the sacra- 
mental cup was filled, the word " cup " would be applied to it 
in the first sense. In the words : " He took the cup," Luke 



THE CUP. 779 

xxii. 17, the word " cup " is used in the third of these senses — 
He took the cup containing, and through it the contents. In 
the words : " Divide it among yourselves," the cup is conceived 
of in the second sense — divide the contained cup, hy passing 
from one to the other the containing cup, with its contents. In 
the words of the institution : " This cup is the New Testa- 
ment," the contained cup, in the second sense, is understood — 
the contained as mediated through the containing — that which 
this cup contains is the New Testament in my blood. In such 
a use of the word " cup " there is no metaphor, no rhetorical 
figure whatever. It is a grammatical form of speech ; and if 
it is called a " figure," the word " figure " is used in a sense 
different from that which it has when it is denied that there 
is a " figure " in the first words of the Supper. "We deny that 
there is a rhetorical figure in any part of the words of the 
Institution. 

While in the history of the second part of the Supper, Mat- 
thew and Mark upon the one side, and Luke and St. Paul 
upon the other, are perfectly coincident in meaning, that is a 
radically false exegesis which attempts to force the language 
of either so as to produce a specific parallelism of phraseology. 
According to Matthew and Mark, Jesus took the cup, and, 
having given thanks, gave it to His disciples, saying, " Drink ye 
all of it ; for this is that blood of mine, the (blood) of the New 
Covenant, the (blood) shed for many for the remission of sins." 
These words grammatically mean : " Literally drink, all of you, 
of it. For it, this which I tell you all to drink, is that blood 
of wine, the blood of the New Covenant ; the blood shed for 
many for the remission of sins." So far as Matthew and Mark 
are concerned, the exegetical parallel in the Lutheran interpre- 
tation of both parts is perfect. Their meaning is clear and 
unmistakable. Luke and Paul state the same thought in its 
Hebraizing form, which is less conformed than the Greek to 
our English idiom. " In the same manner also, (taking, giv- 
ing thanks, blessing,) He gave them the, cup after they had 
supped, saying: This the cup (is) the New Covenant in my 
blood, which (cup) is poured out for you." 

The grammatical differences between the two accounts are 



780 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

several. First, in Matthew and Mark the suhject is the demon- 
strative pronoun touto, this, which I command you to drink,* 
in Luke and Paul, the suhject is : " This the cup " " poured out 
for you : " meaning of both, differently expressed, this which 
I command you to drink (Matt., Mark), to wit, the cup "poured 
out for you," (Luke,) the poured out, the shed contents of 
the cup, are the blood of Christ, (Luke, Paul). Second. The 
copula is the same: Esti, is. Expressed in Matthew, Mark, 
and Paul. Understood in Luke. But it can only be left un- 
expressed on the theory that the proper force of the substan- 
tive copula is unchangeable. It cannot mean, This which I tell 
you to drink is a symbol of my blood, or, This the cup is the 
symbol of the New Covenant. Third. The predicate is different 
grammatically, but identical really : In Matthew and Mark 
the predicate is, My blood ; the blood of the New Covenant ; 
the blood which is shed for many for the remission of sins. 
In Luke and Paul, the predicate is : The New Covenant in my 
blood. The blood constitutes the Covenant, the Covenant is 
constituted in the blood. In Matthew and Mark, our Lord 
says : That which His disciples drink in the Eucharist is the 
shed blood of the New Covenant. In Luke and Paul He says, 
That the cup poured out for them, which they drink, is the 
New Covenant (constituted) in His blood. Now, cup and that 
which they drink are two terms for one and the same thing ; 
and blood of the New Covenant and New Covenant of the 
blood are one and the same thing, as an indissoluble unity. They 
are a cause and effect continuously conjoined. The blood is 
not something which originates the Covenant, and gives it a 
separate being no longer dependent on its cause ; but the blood 
is forever the operative cause of the Covenant in its application, 
of which it was primarily the cause in its consummation. That 
which we drink in the Supper is the shed blood of Christ — 
and that shed blood is the New Covenant, because the Covenant 
is in the blood, and with the blood. This is the identity of 

*So even Meyer: "Dieses was ihr trinken sollet." So far and so far only 
the Grammar carries him ; but he presumes to add, not from any knowledge 
gained from the text, but from Lightfoot, that what they were to drink was "the 
(red) wine in this cup." 



THE CUP. 781 

inseparable conjunction. Now attempt the application of the 
symbolical , metaphorical theory in this case. Can it be pretended 
that the symbolical or metaphorical blood of Christ, not His 
real blood, was shed for the remission of sins ? * or that the 
symbol of the New Covenant, not the New Covenant itself, is 
established in the blood of Christ? As to the theory that 
" cup " does not mean generically " contents," but specifically 
" wine," it is at once arrayed against the laws of language ; and, 
here, is specially impossible, because the cup - content is said 
to be shed or poured for us (" for the remission of sins "). That 
cannot be said of the wine. But as Matthew and Mark ex- 
pressly say it is " the blood which is shed," and Luke and 
Paul say it is "the cup " which is shed, it is clear that cup is 
the content-cup, and that the content-cup shed for us is Christ's 
blood, not a symbol of it. 

The cup is not said to be the New Testament simply, but the 
New Testament in Christ's blood. Now if the contents be mere 
wine, this absurdity arises with the metaphorical interpretation : 
Wine is the symbol of the New Testament in Christ's blood — 
but wine is also the symbol of the blood, on the same theory. 
In one and the same institution, therefore, it is a symbol, both 
of the thing constituting, to wit, the blood, and of the thing 
constituted, to wit, the New Testament. But if it be said, to 
avoid this rock, that it is a symbol of the thing constituted, 
because it is a symbol of the thing constituting, that implies 
that there is a grammatical metonymy of the effect for the 
cause it involves and includes ; and this throws out the rhe- 
torical figure, and admits just what the Lutheran Church 
claims here. 

How completely different the use of " cup " in grammatical 
metonymy is from its use in metaphor, is very clear when we 
take a case in which the word " cup " is actually used in meta- 
phor : " The cup which my Father hath given me shall I not 

*This is not pretended even by the advocates of the symbolical theory. Meyer 
interprets : " ' This is my blood of the Covenant ; ' my blood serving for the 
closing of the Covenant with God." He falls back upon esti, as what he calls 
" the Copula of the Symbolic relation." That such a character in the copula is 
a pure figment, we have tried to show in a previous dissertation. 



782 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

drink it ? " Here there is no literal cup, no literal contents ; 
but anguish is figured under the word. Not so is it when our 
Lord says: "He that giveth a cup of cold water — " The 
containing cup is not of water, but of wood or metal : it is the 
cup contained, our Lord means ; but He uses no figure, but 
plain every-day prose. 

While metaphor proper is never used in a testament to 
directly designate the thing conveyed, the grammatical metony- 
my is constantly so used. A man may direct in a will that 
a cup of wine shall be given to every tenant on the estate, — 
so many barrels of ale, so many sacks of wheat, be distributed 
at a particular time. 

The cup is called the New Testament, not because of the iden- 
tity of sign and thing signified, but because of the identity of 
cause and effect — the cup contained is Christ's blood, and that 
blood is literally the New Testament causally considered. 

It has been objected that, as our Saviour was visibly present, 
the disciples could not have understood that what they took 
from His hands and ate was truly the Communion — the com- 
iii objection niunicating medium of His body. This objection 
—The supposed reveals the essentially low and inadequate views of 
the^Trl^disci- the objector, both as to the person of Christ and 
p ]es - the doctrine of the Church. First. It assumes as 

a fact what cannot be proven, as to the understanding of the 
disciples. Second. Whatever may have been the limitation of 
the faith of the disciples at that time, when they were not yet 
under the full illumination of the Holy Spirit in the New Testa- 
ment measure, and there was necessarily much they did not 
understand at all, and much that they understood very imper- 
fectly, we have strong and direct evidence, as we have already 
shown, of their mature and final understanding of our Lord's 
words, to wit, that these words do involve a true, supernatural, 
objective presence of His body and blood. Third. All the ear- 
liest Fathers who were the disciples of the apostles, or of their 
immediate successors, show that it was their faith that in the 
Lord's Supper there is a supernatural, objective communica- 
tion of the body and blood of Christ, and in connection with 
the other facts make it certain that this was the understanding 






OBJECTION, FROM THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 783 

and the faith of the apostles themselves. The more difficult to 
reason the doctrine of the true presence is shown to be, the 
stronger is the presumption that the doctrine was reached 
neither by the exercise of reason nor by the perversion of it, 
but by the witness of the New Testament writings and the 
personal teachings of the apostles. 

It is objected that it is inconceivable that Christ, then pres- 
ent, visibly and locally, could have given His body sacrament- 
ally in a true, objective sense. There is a strong 
appeal made to the rationalism of the natural mind. from * t he J visib"e 
Christ in His human form is brought before the presence of 

Christ 

mental vision, sitting at the table, holding the 
bread in His hand ; and men are asked, " Can you believe that 
the body which continued to sit visibly and palpably before 
them, was communicated in any real manner by the bread? " 
It is evident at first sight that the objection assumes a falsity, 
to wit, that the body of Christ, though personally united with 
Deity, has no mode of true presence but the visible and palpa- 
ble. The objection, to mean anything, means, " Can you 
believe that what continued in a visible and palpable mode of 
presence before their eyes, was communicated in a visible and 
palpable mode of presence with the bread ? " To this the 
answer is : " We neither assert nor believe it ! " If, to make the 
argument hold, the objector insists, " That, if the body were 
not communicated in that visible and palpable mode, it could 
be communicated in no true mode," he abandons one objection 
to fly to another ; and what he now has to do is to prove that 
the palpable and visible mode of presence is the only one possi- 
ble to the body of our Lord which is in personal union with 
Deity. It is interesting here to see the lack of consistency 
between two sorts of representations made by the objectors 
to the sacramental presence of Christ. The first is, We cannot 
believe that He was sacramentally present then at the first 
Supper because He was bodily so near. The second is, He can- 
not be sacramentally present now;, because His body is so far off. 
But alike to the argument from mere natural proximity, or 
from mere natural remoteness, the answer is : The whole 
human nature of our Lord belongs on two sides, in two sets of 



784 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

relations, to two diverse spheres. That His body was before 
their eyes in the manner of the one sphere, is no reason why 
it should not be impavted to them, after the supernatural and 
heavenly manner of the other, in the sacramental mystery. If 
the local reality is not contradictory to spiritual reality, neither 
is it to the supernatural. If they could receive a body spirit- 
ually, they could receive it supernaturally. If they could have 
it imparted by the Holy Ghost, they could have it imparted 
by the Son. If the disciples could trust their eyes for the 
natural reality, and walk by sight in regard to it, they could 
trust Christ's infallible word for the supernatural reality, 
walking then, as we must ever walk in the high and holy 
sphere of the Divine, by faith, not by sight. The Lutheran 
doctrine of the Eucharist in no degree contradicts the testi- 
mony of the senses. Whatever the senses testify is in the 
Eucharist, it acknowledges to be there. We have the vision, feel- 
ing, and taste of bread and wine, and we believe there is true 
bread and true wine there. But body and blood, supernatu- 
rally present, are not the objects of the senses. The sight, 
touch, taste, are wholly incapable of testimony to such a pres- 
ence, and are equally incapable of testifying against them. 
There are things of nature, naturally present, of which the senses 
are not conscious. There are probably things in nature which 
the senses may be entirely incapable of perceiving. How much 
more then may the supernatural be supernaturally present 
without affording our senses any clue. The senses in no case 
grasp substance; they are always and exclusively concerned 
with phenomena. What if the supernatural here be present 
as substance without phenomena ? We deny that there is a 
phenomenal presence of the body and blood of Christ. We hold 
that there is a substantial presence of them. How little we 
may build upon the assumptions of human vision, is shown by 
the fact that the Docetists believed that the whole appearing 
of Christ was but phenomenal ; that His divinity clothed itself, 
not with a true human body, but with- a spectral and illusive 
form, which men took to be a real body ; it was the substance 
of divinity in the accidents of humanity. The Romish view 
of the Supper is the Docetism of the earthly elements ; the 



OBJECTION, FROM THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST. 785 

Calvinistic view is the Docetism of the heavenly elements — 
the one denies the testimony of the senses in the sphere of the 
senses, and the other denies the witness of the faith in the 
sphere of faith. The senses are competent witnesses as to 
where bread is ; bnt they are not competent witnesses for or 
against the supernatural presence of a body which is in per- 
sonal union with God. We have no more right to reject the 
reality of the presence, which God's word affirms of Christ's 
body, after an invisible mode, than we have, with the Docet- 
ists, to reject the reality of His visible presence. We no more 
saw Christ at the first Supper than we now see Him at His 
Supper. We believe that He was visibly present at the first, 
on the same ground of divine testimony on which we believe 
that He was invisibly present in the sacramental communica- 
tion. If the objector assumes that, on our hypothesis, the first 
disciples had a conflict between sight and faith, we now, at least, 
have no such conflict ; for we have the same testimony in regard 
to both — the testimony of our senses — that the word of God 
declares both. With equal plausibility, if we are to reason 
from the limitations of our conceptions, it might be maintained 
that the divine nature of Jesus Christ could not be present at 
the first Supper. Was not that divine nature all in heaven ? 
How then could it be all in the Supper? Was it not all at 
Christ's right hand, all at Christ's left hand, all above Him, 
all beneath Him ? How could it be all in Him ? How could 
the personal totality of Deity be present in Christ when the 
personal totality of Deity was present in each and every part 
of the illimitable ? If the totality of the Deity could be really 
in the human nature of Christ, and at the same time really in 
the bread, could not that inseparable presence of the human- 
ity which pertains to it, as one person of the Deity, be at once 
conjoined with the Christ visible before them, and the Christ 
invisible of the sacramental Communion ? What the divine 
nature has of presence per se, the human nature has through 
the divine. We can no more explain the divine presence than 
we can the human. It is indeed easier, if the divine be granted, 
to admit the presence of a humanity, which is taken into the 
divine personality, than it is to rise from the original low plain 

50 



786 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

of natural thinking, to the primary conception of the omni- 
presence of the divine. The objectors admit the latter: they 
thus admit the greater mystery ; yet they blame us for admit- 
ting the less. They admit the great fundamental cause of 
the mystery, to wit, the inseparable union of the human 
nature with the divine personality ; and then deny the neces- 
sary effect and result of that cause. "When Zwingle, at Mar- 
burg, declares that " God does not propose to our belief things 
which we cannot comprehend," Melancthon makes this indig- 
nant note : " Such foolish words fell from him, when in fact 
the Christian doctrine presents many articles more incompre- 
hensible and more sublime (than that article of the true pres- 
ence) ; as, for example, that God was made man, that this person 
Christ, who is true God, died."* The doctrine of the personal 
omnipresence of the humanity of Christ, at the point at which it 
stands in theology, is less difficult to receive than that of the 
essential omnipresence of God at the place at which it stands in 
theology. To the eye, the senses, reason, experience, Jesus 
Christ was but a man. He who can believe, against the appar- 
ent evidence of all these, that the bleeding and dying Nazarene 
was the everlasting God, ought not to hesitate, when He 
affirms it, to believe that what is set before us in the Holy 
Supper is more than meets the eye, or offers itself to the grasp 
of reason. The interpretation which finds mere bread in the 
Institution finds logically mere man in the Institutor. When 
Jesus sat visibly before Nicodemus, the palpable and audible 
Son of man, He said : " The Son of man " (not " the Son of 
God ") " is in heaven." If that Son of man could be with 
Xicodemus in the manner of the lower sphere of His powers, 
and at the same time in heaven in the higher sphere, he could 
be with His disciples at the solemn testamentary Supper, after 
both manners, revealing the one to them in the natural light 
which flowed from His body, and the other in that truer light 
of the higher world of which He is Lord — the light which 
streams upon the eye of faith. 

But there is an impression on the minds of many that the 
well-established results of philosophical thinking in the modern 

*Chytr£eus: Hist. Aug. Conf. (Lat,), Frankf., a. M., 1578, 641. 



PHILOSOPHY, MODERN. 787 

world are in conflict here with the Church's faith. But those 
who are familiar with the speculations of the last three centu- 
ries are aware that so far from this "being the case, v Pllilosophyi 
the whole history of metaphysical thought during Modem. 
that era has shown, with increasing force, the entire inability 
of philosophy to disturb, by any established results, the sim- 
ple faith which rests on the direct testimony of the word. A 
glance at the various modern schools will demonstrate this. 

Why, then, if we ask for the light of that modern philosophy 
which it is thought can clear up the mystery left by revela- 
tion, why, in any case, do we believe, or know, or think we know, 
that there is a human body objectively in our presence ? It is 
regarded by the mass of thinkers as certain that we never 
saw a human body, never felt it ; but that the consciousness 
of the human soul is confined to its own modifications and im- 
pressions, and that our conviction that the modification we 
perceive, when we are convinced that a human body is before 
us. is the result of an objective body, and consequently presup- 
poses its substantial existence, is an act not of cognition, but 
of faith — a faith which has been repudiated by the whole 
school of pure idealists, by many of the greatest European 
speculators, and in the philosophy of nearly the entire Orient. 
So far as philosophy, therefore, can determine it, we have no 
more absolute cognition of the objective, visible presence of a 
natural body than we have of the objective, supernatural, in- 
visible presence of a supernatural body. Our persuasion of 
either presence is an inference, an act of belief, conditioned by 
testimony. We may think we have more testimony for the 
first inference than for the second ; but it is none the less infer- 
ence: it is not cognition. We believe that bread is there, on 
the evidence of the senses ; we believe that Christ's body is 
there, on the evidence of the word. The knowledge or belief of 
the nonego, or external world, involves one of the grandest prob- 
lems of speculative philosophy. The popular idea that we are 
cognizant of the very external things in themselves which we 
are said to see, hear, and feel, is entirely false. All accurate 
thinkers, of every school, admit this. This is the common 
ground of the extremest idealism and of the extremest realism. 



788 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Hegel and Hamilton stand together upon it. So much is not 
speculation : it is demonstration ; and yet to the mass of minds 
this demonstrated fact in metaphysics seems as palpable and 
ridiculous a falsehood as could be devised. 

What modern philosophy can do here will be best seen by 
looking at such of its results and efforts as most decidedly in- 
volve the matter under discussion. 

The school of theological idealism, in which Berkeley is the 
great master, maintained that there is no substance proper 
except spirit, the divine Spirit, God, or created or finite 
Theological spirits, among whom are men. While the common 
ideaiism.-Bcrke- theistic view is that the will of God is the ultimate 
cause of properties or phenomena, and that he has 
made them inhere in substances, which thus become interme- 
diate causes of the properties which inhere in them, Berkeley 
holds that there is no intermediate cause of properties, no sub- 
stance in which they inhere, but that the ultimate cause, God's 
will, is the only cause, and that it groups them without sub- 
stance, under the same laws of manifestation, as the common 
view supposes to be conditioned by substance. Spirit is the 
only substance ; there is no essential nonego relative to an in- 
dividual ego, except other egos. Objective reality presupposes 
originating mind, and mind acted upon. There are but two 
factors in all finite cognition : the ultimate causal mind, and 
the mind affected by it. Phenomena are but operations under 
laws of mind on mind, and in ultimate cause, of. the infinite 
upon the finite. Annihilate spirit, and all reality ceases. The 
world which appeals to our consciousness is but the result of 
the operations of the Divine mind upon the human. Berkeley 
does not deny the reality of the phenomena, but he says that 
the solution of the phenomena is not the existence of a mate- 
rial substance — a thing which all philosophy grants that 
we can only conceive and can never reach — but the solution is 
the direct agency of that divine cause which, in the ordinary 
philosophy, is considered as a cause of causes, that is, what 
the ordinary philosophy says, God works through substance 
" intermediately," the idealist says God works through phe- 
nomena, without substance, " immediately. " The whole 



TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM— KANT. 789 

question, therefore, between the Christian theological idealist 
and the Christian cosmo-thetical idealist is, really, whether 
God operates through phenomena, grouped simply by His 
causative will according to fixed laws, or, on the other hand, 
through objective substances in which attributes actually in- 
here ; whether He operates upon our mind in producing im- 
pressions we connect with a supposed external world u imme- 
diately " or "mediately." It has been said by great philosophers, 
who rejected the former species of idealism, that though no man 
can believe it, no man can confute it ; and it is claimed by 
its advocates that it never has been confuted. That no man 
can believe it, is certainly not true. We have the same evi- 
dence that confessedly deep thinkers have believed it that we 
have that men believe any other doctrine. But if the deepest 
thinking of some of the deepest thinkers can reach such a 
theory, where shall we place the crudities of the popular phi- 
losophy or want of philosophy ? How little can it settle by its 
speculations. 

The school of " transcendental idealism" if it be proper to call 
it " idealism " at all, has its greatest modern representative in 
Kant; and it is said, " Kant cannot, strictly speaking, be called 
an idealist, inasmuch as he accepts objects outside of the Ego, 
which furnish the material for ideas, a material to Transcendental 
which the Ego, in accordance with primary laws, idealism.— Kant, 
merely gives form."* The weakness of Kant's system was its 
arbitrary separation between the practical and the speculative. 
He held that the data of perception are valid in the practical 
sphere both of thought and action, but cannot be accepted as 
proven, and therefore valid, in the sphere of speculation. The 
practical here reached a result which transcended the powers of 
the speculative. To the speculative it was not, indeed, dis- 
proven, but only non-proven ; yet, as non-proven, it made his 
system one which admitted, on one side, the speculative possi- 
bility of the purest idealism, while on the other, at the sacrifice 
of internal consistency, he reached for himself a hypothetical 
realism, or cosmo-thetical idealism. All speculative thiuking 
in Germany since has, more or less, turned upon the vindica- 

* Flirtmaier: Pkilosoph. Real Lexicon. Augsburg, 1854, Idealismus. 



790 CONSERVATIVE HE FOE 31 AT ION. 

tion or repairing of this inconsistency, or the running out of 
one or other side of it to the exclusion of the other. 

The school of subjective idealism, or absolute subjectivity, holds 
that all existence is subjective. Mind is the only essence. It 
sets aside a cosmos or external reality altogether, denies the 
objective existence of all matter, maintains that our seeming 
consciousness, through our senses, is not really the result of 
anything outside the mind. The assumed external thing, and 
the image of it, are one thing, and that is a modification of the 
mind. The conscious person, the ego y is the sole proper reality. 

subjective ideal- This is Fichte's system in its entire form. Kant 
ism.-Fichte. h a( j avoided absolute idealism by granting the 
existence of sensuous intuitions to which real objects, distinct 
from the mind, correspond. But as the notions of pure reason, 
or universal notions, are not, according to Kant, to be styled 
objectively real because their objective reality cannot be de- 
monstrated ; and as it is equally impossible, on the principles 
of Kant, to demonstrate the objective reality of sensuous intui- 
tions, Fichte drew the inference that these latter ought also to 
be regarded as mere subjective phenomena, and that conse- 
quently all so-called realities are but creations of the Ego, and 
all existence no more than thought.* 

Fichte's later views are essentially different. He held in his 
riper period that it is not the finite ego or limited conscious- 
ness, but Grod the primary consciousness, whose life reveals 
itself in the infinite multiplicity of circumstances, who is to be 
regarded as the ultimate reason of all essence. 

The school of objective idealism holds to the system of the 
absolute identity of the object supposed to be perceived, and the 
subject, the mind, perceiving. This school is represented in 
Schelling in his second stage, and Hegel in his first, and 

objective ideal- Cousin. Both the external thing and the con- 
ism. -Hegei. scious person are existences equally real or ideal; 
but they are manifestations of the absolute, the infinite, or 
unconditioned. Mind and matter are phenomenal modifica- 
tions of the same common substance. 

* These views are developed especially in his work : Ueber den Begriff der 
Wissenschaftslehre (1794), 1798, and in his Grundlage der gesammten Wissen- 
schaftslehre, Jena and Lpz. (1794), 1802. 



REALISTIC IDEALISM. 791 

The soberest and best form of idealism, which is indeed also 
realism, recognizes the external world as a real thing, but 
holds that we can have cognition of it, not as it is in itself, but 
as it is phenomenally, and that we reach a " mediate knowl- 
edge " of the phenomena by the direct cognition of conscious- 
ness. The mind is really modified by these phenomenal causes, 
and its inference, that its own states presuppose Realistic ideal- 
ultimate substantial realities without which these ism - 
phenomena would not be, is a just inference. Hamilton calls 
this class " Hypothetical Dualists," or cosmothetic idealists, 
and says that to it " the great majority of modern philosophers 
are to be referred." It is an idealism which acknowledges 
realities which transcend the sphere of the senses, and which 
is thus compelled to admit that natural faith can challenge for 
its verities as just, if not as positive, an assurance as is given 
by direct cognition. All that the human mind immediately 
and absolutely knows is its own states of consciousness — 
everything else is inference, intuitive conviction, irresistible 
faith. " Mediate knowledge " is only intellectual faith. 

The greatest representative of another school in effect admits 
all this. Sir William Hamilton says : " The existence of God 
and immortality are not given us as phenomena, as objects of 
immediate knowledge." Metaphysics: Lect. VII. " The ex- 
istence of an unknown substance is only an inference we are 
compelled to make from the existence of known phenomena." 
" Of existence absolutely and in itself, we know nothing." 
" All we know is known only under the special conditions 
of our faculties." " In the perception of an external ob- 
ject, the mind does not know it in immediate relation to 
itself, but mediately in relation to the material organs of 
sense." Lect. VIII. " Consciousness is a knowledge solely of 
what is now and here present to the mind . . comprehends 
every cognitive act ; whatever we are not conscious of, that we 
do not know." Dissert. Supplem. to Reid. " Consciousness is 
the condition of all internal phenomena . . comprises within its 
sphere the whole phenomena of mind." Lect. X. " Con- 
sciousness is an immediate, not a mediate, knowledge. We 
know the mental representation . . immediately . . the past 



792 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION, 

mediately . . through the mental modification which represents 
it. Consciousness is co-extensive with our knowledge . . our 
special faculties of knowledge are only modifications of con- 
sciousness. All real knowledge is an immediate knowledge. 
What is said to be mediately known, is, in truth, not known to 
be, but only believed to be ; for its existence is only an infer- 
ence ^ resting on the belief that the mental modification truly 
represents what is in itself beyond the sphere of knowledge." 
Lect. XII. 

The philosophical thinkers, whose leader we have just quoted, 
who claim to be the school of " Common sense," and vindi- 
cate their position as consonant with the popular interpreta- 
tion of consciousness, are entitled by Sir William Hamilton, 
Natural Real- "Natural Realists." It is evident, in the Lectures 
ism - of that illustrious philosophical scholar, that he 

started with one set of views, and experienced at least three 
changes before he reached his final position ; and this final posi- 
tion is virtually a practical return to the first. These are as 
follows : 1. The mind has no immediate knowledge except of 
its own states. We only immediately know that of which we 
are conscious, and we can only be conscious of our own mental 
states. Our knowledge of the external world is therefore medi- 
ated by our consciousness ; it is an inference based on intuition 
and irresistible processes — is, strictly speaking, belief, not cog- 
nition. This is the first view, or Cosmothetic Idealism. 

2. The popular impression of what consciousness affirms is 
the true standard of consciousness. We are conscious of what- 
ever the mass of people think we are conscious of. But the 
mass of mankind suppose they are conscious of the very objects 
themselves in the external world. Therefore, we are conscious 
of the external verities themselves. This we may call Yulgar 
Realism. 

3. The objective causes of perception, which is a form of con- 
sciousness distinct from subconsciousness, are only such parts 
of the nonego as come in contact with the sensorium, or bodily 
organ of perception. Of these the soul has immediate cogni- 
tion. Organic Realism. 



NATURAL REALISM. 793 

4. The soul and body are personally united, so that our per- 
ceptions are composite, embracing the sensuous organ as modified 
by the nonego in contact with it, and the mind as also modified 
in a manner which cannot be explained. The nonego outside 
of the man is, however, on this theory, still hypothetical. 

For, first of all, it does not claim that we are conscious or per- 
ceptive of what is outside of the individual, as a total complex 
of soul and body ; and, secondly, to reach the nonego which it 
claims to establish, it is compelled to acknowledge that the 
ego is a personal unity — both soul and body. The modified 
organ is, therefore, a part of the ego ; and the theory meets the 
horns of a dilemma. If it says the modification of the organ 
is within the man, though outside of the mind, and, therefore, 
is perceived as a nonego, it denies its own definition of the 
complex person on which the theory rests — for the man is the 
ego. But if the total man be the ego, then that which is with- 
in either part of his person is within the ego ; and the modifi- 
cations of the man, be they where they may, are modifications 
of the ego, and not objective realities existent beyond it. This 
last view approximates the true view, which may be styled 
Personal Realism. It is in substance a renewal of the first 
theory, but with the great improvement of a true, yet still in- 
adequate, view of the personality and unity of man. Personal 
Realism regards man as a being of two natures, inseparably 
conjoined in unity of person, so that he is not a soul and a 
body, but a psychical flesh, or incarnate soul. Apart from the 
personal relation of these two parts, there can be no man, no 
true human body, and no true human soul. 

Between death and the resurrection there is only a relative, 
not an absolute separation between soul and body ; and the 
resurrection itself is a proof that the two natures are essential 
to the perfect, distinctive, human personality. A human spirit 
absolutely disembodied forever would not be a man, but only 
the spirit of a man. At the resurrection, in consequence of the 
changed condition of unchanged essences, man shall be a spirit- 
ual body, or an incorporate spirit. Before the resurrection, as 
the dead live " to God" both as to body and soul, both body 
and soul live to each other " to God," and still constitute one 



794 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

person " to God." Man has the primary natural life, in which 
he lives in both soul and body, to man and God, in the sphere 
of nature. Man has the provisional, intermediate, and super- 
natural life, in which he lives no more to man, but " lives to 
God " in both soul and body in the sphere of the supernatural. 
Man has the ultimate eternal life, the resurrection life, which 
is the natural life of heaven, in which he lives to God and 
man. Then is he a spiritual body — an incorporate spirit. 
Both natures in the highest perfection are forever in super- 
organic union. Matt. xxii. 32, Luke xx. 38 : " God is not a God 
of the dead, but of the living ; for all live unto Him," {in Him, 
Arab. ; with Him, JEthiop.) This is to show, not that the soul 
is immortal, but that the " dead are raised" 37. Marcion, 
who acknowledged only the Gospel of Luke, rejected this whole 
passage. He held to the immortality of the soul, but rejected 
Christ's teaching of the immortality of man. The covenant 
God is the God of the whole person. If God is the God of 
Abraham, he is the God of the whole Abraham ; and the 
whole Abraham, body and soul, lives. But as to the body he 
is dead to man ; nevertheless, as to the body, he still lives to 
God. Body and soul are to God a living inseparable, linked 
even after death in the sphere of the supernatural — the sphere 
which is to God. Between death and the resurrection, the body 
and soul remain one person in the mind and in the hand of God. 
The soul of the dead Christ was separated from His body, 
so far as every natural and organic bond is concerned ; but His 
body, through the three days, remained still in personal unity 
with the divine nature, with which the soul also was united 
personally ; and both, being held inseparably to the one person, 
were in it held to each other still as parts of one person. So 
that the body of Christ truly " crucified, dead, and buried," 
still lived to God ; and the personal union of the human nature, 
body and soul, and of the divine nature, was unbroken. In 
virtue of the mediatorial covenant, by which all who die in 
Adam are made alive in Christ (1 Cor. xv. 22), the personal 
relation of the bodies and souls of all the dead remains un- 
broken to God. But pre-eminently in the case of those who 
are in "mystic union" with God — a union which involves 



NATURAL REALISM. 795 

both body and soul — what is called death does not break that 
union with Him as regards either part. The body and soul, 
separated as to the old organic bond of nature, are united still 
to each other by being united to God — for all live to Him. The 
whole person in both natures lives to God, therefore the whole 
person in both natures lives forever — man is immortal. The 
intermediate relation must be provisional. Dead men can only 
live, even as to the body, to God, with a view to that direct 
reunion of the body with the spirit which takes place in the 
resurrection. Therefore, the "dead are raised." 

All, then, according to the theory which is the highest in 
its assumption as to our absolute knowledge of the " nonego " — 
or external world — all then that we know is so much of light, 
as is successively brought upon the optic nerve, so much of 
vibrating air as reaches the auditory nerve, and so through 
the little range of the other senses. The objective reality, which 
causes the undulation of light which produces the image on 
the retina ; the objective reality which 'produces the vibrations, 
which the tympanum communicates to the' auditory nerve ; 
all this is equally, as on the second theory, to be accepted on 
the ground of intuitive belief, or of logical process ; it is inferred 
and believed, not known. How little then, on the showing of 
philosophy itself, even in its extremest pretensions, is it able to 
do in fixing or unfixing our faith in the testimony of God. 

These views, which we have presented, are the sum of all 
the best philosophical thinking on the subject of the relation 
of the mind and its cognitions to the reality of an external 
world. 

Our conviction then, that the causes of sensation have an 
objective substantiality, is at its root ethical rather than intel- 
lectual. It rests upon the veracity of God. No theist can 
deny that if God will so to do, every impression we now receive 
could be made upon us without the existence of matter. What 
we call the testimony of our senses is worth nothing whatever, 
except on the assumption that God is true ; and to take that 
very word of His — one of whose grand objects is to correct 
the mistakes of our natural senses and natural thinking — to 
treat this as a something whose plain teachings are to be set 



796 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

aside by the very thing whose infirmity necessitates the giving 
of it, is as unphilosophical as it is unchristian. 

An objection which is a species under the metaphysical, and 

which is, perhaps more frequently used than any other, is, that 

it is impossible that a true human body should be really present 

in more than one place at the same time — the 

Objection from m x 

the natme of essential nature of the body, and the essential 
nature of space, make the thing impossible. It is 
worthy of note that the objection is usually put in the vague 
assertion that a body, or a hitman body, cannot be thus present. 
In this already lies a certain evasiveness or obscuration of the 
real question. The incautious thinker is thrown off his guard, 
as if the assertion controverted is that a body, or a human 
body in general, that every and any body can be present in the 
sense denied. There is a fallacy both as to what is present, and 
what the mode of the presence is. As to the first, the question 
fairly stated is : Can Christ's body be present ? Can a body 
which is in inseparable personal unity with the Godhead be 
present ? Can that, which no human body simply as such 
could do, be done by the body of our Lord, whose relations and 
powers are unique and transcendent ? The question of possi- 
bility all through is not what is possible to a human body, in 
its natural and familiar limitations, but what is possible to 
God. Is there evidence that it is His will that the body of 
our Lord should be sacramentally present at His Supper ; and 
if God wills it, is it possible for Him to fulfil it ? If the evi- 
dence is clear that God does so will, that man is no Chris- 
tian who denies that His will can be consummated ; and that 
man, who, because he thinks the thing is impossible, refuses to 
accept what, but for that difficulty, he would acknowledge to be 
invincible testimony as to God's will, is a Rationalist ; his 
mode of interpretation is Socinianizing, though he may be 
nominally orthodox. 

On the question of possibility, it is well to rememberers^ 

that we do not know the absolute limits of the possible. All 

sound philosophers acknowledge that there are incontrovertible 

The impossible, facts whose possibility not only cannot be demon- 

seif-existence. gtrated, but which are overthrown speculatively by 



CREATION— OMNIPRESENCE. 797 

all the logic which man is able to bring to bear upon the question. 
The philosophy of the world of thinkers has mysteries, which 
it accepts as irresistibly proven or attested to consciousness, 
which are as impossible, logically, as the doctrine of the Trinity, 
or the personal presence of the undivided Christ in His Supper. 
All systems of Christian theology, even the lowest, acknowl- 
edge that certain things, which seem to reason and logic im- 
possible, are not only possible but actual ; as, for example, that 
there should be a self-existent being. If there be one thing, 
which, beyond all others of its class, seems to the mind of man 
logically impossible, it is this very thing of self-existence ; 
yet it is most clear that we must choose between the idea of 
one self-existent or of a vast number of self-existents. The normal 
mind of man, on an intelligent presentation of the whole case, 
at once chooses the former, and thus concedes that the impossi- 
ble, logically, is the presupposition of all that is possible and 
actual. Because self-existence seems to us impossible, we are 
compelled to believe in the self-existent. We have to choose 
between, once for all, accepting the seemingly impossible, and 
thus having a ground for all that is possible, or, accepting the 
same seemingly impossible, multiplied infinitely. But having 
accepted the seemingly impossible in essence, by believing in 
God, we are again compelled to acknowledge the seemingly 
impossible in act, by accepting the fact of creation. 

/ -n, t . n . . t t . . Creation. 

Granted an infinite mind, yet does it seem impossi- 
ble that by its mere will, material and intellectual being should 
come into existence. We are compelled to acknowledge that 
out of material nothing material something is brought to 
being. The lowest thing that is, we argue, must imply pre- 
existent mind, to adapt it to its ends ; yet the highest thing 
that is, God himself, though He be an entity of perfect adapta- 
tion, is not adapted, but is absolute. 

Another mystery recognized in all Christian theology is that 
there should be a substantial presence of this Being, such that 
the whole of His essence shall be in each part of 
the universe ; and yet that there shall be no multi- 
plication of essence or presence ; that the entire essence should 
pervade infinity, and yet be indivisible ; so that there is no 



798 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

part of God anywhere, and that the whole of God is every- 
where, no less in the least than in the greatest, no less in the 
minutest part than in the absolute whole ; in place, yet illocal, 
in all parts, yet impartible, in infinity, yet unextended. 

The idea of eternity, of something to which all time is un- 
related, to which millions are no more than a unit, each being 
relatively to eternity nothing, of which a trillion 
trillion of years is no larger part than the minutest 
fraction of a second — a something of which we are compelled 
to conceive as back of us, and before us, but which is not back 
of us nor before us ; in which we seem surely to have reached 
the middle point, this centre at which we stand, but which 
has no middle point ; an infinite gone, and an infinite to come, 
but which has not gone and is not to come, but ever is, with- 
out past, or future, or proportion ; this is a something which 
to reason and logic is utterly incomprehensible and impossible 
upon the one side, as on the other it is the irresistible neces- 
sity of our thinking. It is inconceivable how it is, or even 
ivhat it is ; but we can no more doubt that it is than we can 
doubt our own being. 

If we come within the limits of the theology of the Cath- 
olic creeds, we find the seemingly impossible here also accepted 
as necessary truth. That the entire essence of the Godhead, 
the unity of the divine Being unimpaired, shall in its modi- 
fications form the personality of the three persons, 
each person having the whole essence, yet being 
personally distinct from each of the others, not three essences, 
nor one essence in three thirds, but one essence entire in each 
— this swallows up the understanding of man. That the 
infinite Godhead should so take to itself a true human body, 
that the " human" and "divine" shall henceforth be one 
Hypostatic person, so that we can say, not by mere ac- 
union. commodation of language, but literally, "Christ 

made the universe, and God purchased the Church with 
His own blood" — this is fathomless. God is substantially 
present in every human creature: How is it then that but 
one of our race is God incarnate? However fathomless 
then, a doctrine whose basis is the truth, that the God of 



ONUS PR OB AND I. 799 

eternity, the God of omnipotence, the God of the unity in 
trinity, has a human nature, forming one person with His own, 
may he, we are bound to accept it, if His word teaches it ; and 
we have seen that His word does teach it. 

There has been great disingenuousness among some of the 
opposers of the Scripture doctrine of the Lord's Supper. They 
have first urged the speculative difficulties of natural reason 
against the direct sense of the text ; then professing to be will- 
ing to bow before the "Word of God with absolute 
submission, they yet claim to have shown, on the 
ground of natural reason, that the Word does not teach the 
doctrine for which we here contend. Now the true mode of 
Scripture interpretation is : First. To fix the direct and literal 
sense of the words by the laws of language. Second. To ad- 
here to that sense, unless, under a law acknowledged by God's 
Word itself, we are bound to accept a figurative sense. Those 
who depart from the literal sense in a disputed case are always 
by that fact thrown upon the defensive. He who has the 
literal sense of the text with him, is under no obligation to 
argue for his doctrine until it shall be shown that the literal 
sense is not tenable. On the main point of the objective pres- 
ence, proven by taking the words in the literal sense, the im- 
mense majority of Christendom has been and is a unity. Those 
w T ho deny the doctrine are bound to show that the literal sense 
cannot (not simply may not) be the true one. To say the literal 
sense cannot be the true one, because a small minority in the 
Christian Church think that sense involves something in con- 
flict with their reason, is not only rationalistic, but egotistic 
and conceited in the last degree. Those who accept the literal 
sense have quite as much natural reason, quite as much power 
of seeing the difficulties it suggests, as the rationalizing mi- 
nority. The question can never be settled on that ground. The 
attempt to do it has only wrought division. It has made 
chaos where Christendom before had order. The Reason, 
which has rejected the literal sense, has never been able to fix 
another. It has dropped pearl after pearl of truth into its 
vinegar, and the total result is spoiled vinegar and ruined pearls. 
The Reason has been injured by the abuse of the truth, and the 



800 CONSERVATIVE BE FOR MAT! ON. 

truth has been perverted by the abuse of the Reason. But even 
on the low ground on which this rationalizing wishes to put 
this question, it has not the strength it claims for itself. If 
we consent, for argument's sake, to carry the question out of 
the sphere of the supernatural, where it belongs, to the sphere 
of the natural, where it does not belong, how little are we 
The natmai. prepared to affirm of the ultimate power of God in 
Natme of things. t j ie na f ura i world. We indeed speak of the nature 
of things, and may say, the thing being so, its nature must be 
so ; but we may not speak of a nature of things alien to and 
superior to the will of God. Even if we grant that there is 
a nature of things not the result of the mil of God ; as, for ex- 
ample, the nature of God himself, and the nature of the finite 
as finite, of the created as created, of the made as inferior to 
the maker ; yet we cannot hold that the absolute nature, or the 
relative nature, is contradictory to the absolute will. God is not 
omnipotent as the result of His willing to be omnipotent ; but 
neither is omnipotent nature possibly contradictory to the ab- 
solute will. The nature of the created as created, the nature by 
which the creature, in virtue of its being a creature, is of 
necessity, and not as a result of will, not creator, but creature, 
is not contradictory to the will of God. His will perfectly 
concurs, though it is not the cause of the nature of things, ab- 
stractly considered. But all things themselves exist by God's 
will. Without His will, therefore, there would be no things, 
and consequently no concrete nature of things. The concrete 
nature of things, therefore, is the result of God's will. While, 
therefore, the creature cannot be the creator, and, by the essen- 
tial necessity of the presupposition, only the creature results 
from the divine will, and of necessity has a creaturely and finite 
nature, yet it is simply and solely because of the divine will 
that things exist, and that there is an existent nature of things. 
Whatever, therefore, may be the speculative relation into 
which the mind puts the abstract nature of things and the 
divine will, the actual nature of things and the divine will are 
in perfect harmony ; and the actual nature would have no 
being without the will. Actual things and their actual nature, 



SELF- CONTRADICTION. 801 

in a word, are so related to God's will that, knowing them, we 
know it — knowing it, we know them. 

We admit that there are ideas, or what are called ideas, 
which are self-contradictory, and to which, therefore, there 
can he no corresponding realities. Yet, in regard to the great 
mass of things, which the uncultured mind would assert to be 
absolutely self-contradictory, and not necessarily merely such 
to our faculties, it may be affirmed, that the deepest thinkers 
would deny that they were demonstrably absolutely contra- 
dictory. Most things are said to be self-contra- Self . contradic . 
dictory because we have never seen them, nor are tion. 
we able to conceive of them, in harmony. But with finite 
faculties, this only demonstrates their relative, not their abso- 
lute, self-contradiction. Over an immense field of thought, we 
are not safe in affirming or denying certain things to be self- 
consistent or self-contradictory. Any man, who will take up 
the systems of human speculation wrought out by the greatest 
minds of all ages, will find that there is almost nothing, in the 
way of supposition, which can be set aside on the ground that 
the human mind invariably rejects it as impossible. It is 
wonderful how few things there are not only not demon- 
strably absolutely impossible, but which are relatively impos- 
sible to all minds. 

John Stuart Mill (one of the most vigorous and most skep- 
tical of the speculative thinkers of our day) maintains that, in 
a certain course which is conceivable, the human mind would 
come to consider the proposition that twice two are five as fixed, 
as it now considers the proposition that twice two are four. 
A few extracts from the examination of Hamilton's Philos- 
ophy, by this illustrious thinker, will show what results are 
compatible with the ripest philosophical thinking. He pre- 
sents the following among the results of the latest speculation : 

" If things have an inmost nature, apart, not only from the 
impressions which they produce, but from all those which they 
are fitted to produce, on any sentient being, this inmost nature 
is unknowable, inscrutable, and inconceivable, not to us merely, 
but to every other creature." " Time and Space are only 
modes of our perceptions, not modes of existence ; and higher 

51 



802 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

intelligences are, possibly, not bound by them. Things, in 
themselves, are neither in time nor in space." Brown is "of 
opinion that though we are assured of the objective existence 
of a world external to the mind, our knowledge of this world 
is absolutely limited to the modes in which we are affected by 
it." "There may be innumerable modes of being which are 
inaccessible to our faculties. The only name we can give them 
is, Unknowable." Chap. II. Quoting Hamilton's Declaration, 
" There is no ground for inferring a certain fact to 
be impossible merely from our inability to conceive 
its possibility," Mill adds, U I regard this opinion as per- 
fectly just. If anything which is now inconceivable by us 
were shown to us as a fact, we should soon find ourselves able 
to conceive it. We should be in danger of going over to the 
opposite error, and believing that the negative of it is impos- 
sible. Inconceivability is a purely subjective thing, arising from 
the mental antecedents of the individual mind, or from those 
of the human mind generally, at a particular period, and can- 
not give us any insight into the possibilities of Nature. But 
were it granted that inconceivability is not solely the conse- 
quence of limited experience, but that some incapacities of 
conceiving are inherent in the mind, and inseparable from it, 
this would not entitle us to infer that, what we are thus inca- 
pable of conceiving, cannot exist. Such an inference would 
only be warrantable, if we could know a priori that we must 
have been created capable of conceiving whatever is capable 
of existing ; that the universe of thought and that of reality . . . 
must have been framed in complete correspondence with one 
another. That this is the case ... is the foundation (among 
others) of the systems of Schelling and Hegel ; but an assump- 
tion more destitute of evidence could scarcely be made, nor can 
we easily imagine any evidence that could prove it, unless it 
were revealed from above. What is inconceivable cannot, 
therefore, be inferred to be false. . . . What is inconceivable 
is not, therefore, incredible." Chap. VI. Furthermore, to 
argue from the inconceivable as deducible from the supposed 
properties of matter would be very fallacious in fact, while 
we see the idealism of Asia, part of Germany, and of !N~ew 



HAMILTON. 803 

England, denying at one extreme the very existence of matter, 
and the materialism of part of Europe and America insisting, 
at the other extreme, that nothing exists but matter. A third 
tendency, represented in Locke and his school, throws a bridge 
by which men can pass over to the first or the second, by making 
the world of the senses the only world of cognition, and by main- 
taining that there is nothing in the nature of things, nothing 
in the nature of matter or of thought, to prevent matter from 
being endowed with the power, of thought and feeling. But 
this is in effect to obliterate the essential distinction between 
spirit and matter. If matter can be endowed with the property 
of thinking, it can be endowed with all the other properties of 
mind ; that is, mind can be matter, matter can be mind ; but 
if the finite mind can be finite matter, the infinite mind can 
be infinite matter, and we reach a materialistic pantheism. 
The skeptical school of Locke itself being judge, we can, from 
the limitations usually belonging to matter, draw no inference 
against the presence of the body of Christ in the Supper. 

While we repudiate all these extremes of speculation, we 
yet see in them that the human mind is unable to settle what 
are the precise limitations imposed by the nature of things on 
matter and spirit, or to say how much or how little of what is 
commonly considered the exclusive property of the one God 
may be pleased to give to the other. Sir William Hamilton 
says, " It has been commonly confessed that, as substances, we 
know not what is matter, and are ignorant of what is mind."* 
" Consciousness in its last analysis ... is a faith." " Season 
itself must rest at last upon authority ; for the original data 
of reason do not rest on reason, but are necessarily accepted by 
reason on the authority of what is beyond itself. These data 
are, therefore, in rigid proprietv, belief or trust. 

' . . . ° r r " ' J Hamilton. 

Thus it is that in the last resort we must, perforce, 
philosophically admit that belief is the primary condition of rea- 
son, and not reason the ultimate ground of belief. We are 
compelled to surrender the proud Intellige ut Gredas of Abe- 
lard, to content ourselves with the humble Crede ut intelligas 
of Anselm." " We do not in propriety know that what we are 

* Discussions. Appendix. 



804 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

compelled to perceive as not self is not a perception of self, and 
we can only on reflection believe such to be the case."* Mill 
sums up the opinion of Hamilton as this : " Belief is a higher 
source of evidence than knowledge ; belief is ultimate : knowl- 
edge only derivative ; knowledge itself finally rests on be- 
lief ; natural beliefs are the sole warrant for all our knowl- 
edge. Knowledge, therefore, is an inferior ground of assurance 
to natural belief; and as we have belief which tells us that 
we know, and without which we could not be assured of the 
truth of our knowledge, so we have, and are warranted in 
having, beliefs beyond our knowledge ; beliefs respecting the 
unconditioned, respecting that which is in itself unknowable." 
How little we are competent to decide on the metaphysic 
of a personal union, in which an infinite person takes to itself 
a human nature, is manifest when we attempt the metaphysic 
of that personal union with which we are most familiar — the 
union of soul and body in man. In our own persons, we are 
not always, perhaps are never, able to draw the line between 
what the body does through the soul, and what the soul does 
by the body. In ourselves there is a shadow of the marvel of 
the Communicatio idiomatum. The soul is not mechanically, 
nor merely organically, united with the body, but is incarnate, 
" made flesh." It takes the body into personal unity with it, 
so that henceforth there is a real fellowship of properties. 
What the soul has per se, the body has through the soul in 
the personal union. There is a real conjoint possession of 
powers by body and soul in the one human persou. The body 
has real properties, by means of the union with spirit, which 
it could not have as mere matter. That w T hich is per se but 
Fellowship of fl esD > i g > i n the personal union, body ; and body is 
Properties in the an integral part of the person of man. It receives 
personality from the spirit — not that the spirit 
parts with its personality so as in any sense to lose it, nor that 
the body receives it intrinsically, so as in any sense to hold it 
apart from the spirit, but that this one personality, essentially 
inhering in the spirit, now pertains to the complex being man ; 
two natures share in one personality, the one by intrinsic pos- 

* Note A, in Reed, pp. 749, 750. 



FELLOWSHIP OF PROPERTIES. 805 

session, the other by participation resulting from the unity; 
so that henceforth no act or suffering of the body is without 
the soul, no act or passion of the soul is without the body ; all 
acts and passions are personal, pertaining to the whole man. 
Though this or that be relatively according to one or other 
nature, it is not to the exclusion of the other: "My soul 
cleaveth to the dust " and " My flesh crieth out for the living 
God.'"' The human body has actual properties, in virtue of its 
union with spirit, which are utterly different from and beyond 
what matter, merely as matter, can possibly have. Because 
this great truth has been ignored, philosophy stands helpless 
before the question, How the soul can receive impressions by 
the body ? The attempts of the greatest of thinkers to solve 
this problem seem more like burlesques, than serious efforts. 
The personal unity of man alone solves the mystery. No theory 
but this can meet the facts of our being. None but this can 
avoid the two shoals of Absolute Idealism and Absolute Ma- 
terialism. " The soul," says Tertullian,* "is not, by itself, 
man, nor is the flesh, without the soul, man. Man is, as it 
w r ere, the clasp of tw^o conjoined substances." " Man," says a 
work attributed to Augustine, though evidently, in part, of 
later date,f " consists of two substances, soul and flesh : the soul 
with reason, the flesh with its senses, which senses, however, the 
flesh does not put into activity (mo vet), without the fellowship 
(societate) of the soul." " The soul," says the same ancient 
book,;): " is so united to the flesh, that it is one person with the 
flesh. Of God as author, soul and flesh become one individual, 
one man: hence, what is proper to each nature remaining safe, 
that is added to the flesh, which is of the soul, and that is 
added to the soul, which is of the flesh : according to the unity 
of person, not according to the diversity of nature. What, 
therefore, is proper to each, is common to both ; proper ac- 
cording to nature, common according to person." 

But if the body assumed by the soul has a new range of 
properties, which give it a dependent exaltation, how much 
more may we expect that when these conjoint natures, form- 

*De Resurrect. Carnis. f De Spirit, et Anim., C. III. 

% Augustini Opera, VI., App. 810. Liber de Spirit, et Anima., C. XLI. 



806 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

ing a human nature, are taken into personal union with the 
divine, there shall be a real personal participation by that 
human nature in the attributes of the divine. And if we may 
thus argue from the body that is, the natural body, how 
greatly is the argument strengthened by the fact that this same 
body, in its exalted attributes, as glorified at the resurrection, 
is so perfect an organ of the spiritual, so conformed to the 
spiritual in its unity, that St. Paul calls it " spiritual body." 
Now Christ's body is a spiritual body, and, by means of the 
Spirit whose organ it is, exercises spiritual functions ; Christ's 
body is a divine body by means of the divine person it incar- 
nates, and through that person exercises divine powers. A 
" spiritual body " is not a spirit which is a body, nor a body 
which is a spirit, but a true body, so pure, so exalted in its 
properties and in its glory, that it is more like our present con- 
ceptions of spirit than it is like ordinary matter, and is thereby 
fitted to be the absolute organ of the spirit. If we can limit 
the properties of a spiritual body by what we think we know 
of a natural body, the whole representation of the apostle is 
made void. " It doth not yet appear [is not yet manifested] 
what we shall be," but it is most certain that our conceptions 
of it are far more likely to fall below the truth than to rise 
above it. 

It becomes us then to be modest in our affirmation as to 
what it is possible for God to do even with our natural bodies. 
Much more should we be modest in affirming what may be the 
possibilities of a body forming one part of a divine person. 
Let us acknowledge that we can no more comprehend how a 
spirit, even God himself, should be entire in more than one 
place at one time, than we can conceive of a body thus present. 
All thinkers acknowledge that in the actual conception, the 
definite framing to the mind of the presence alike of body or 
spirit, there is an invincible necessity of connecting locality 
with it. Now the presence of spirit demonstrates that pres- 
ence and locality are neither identical nor inseparable ; and if 
the argument, that they seem so, is demonstrative as to body, 
it is equally so as to spirit ; but if it be granted that this seem- 
ing identity is false as regards spirit, then it may be false as 



TR AN SUBS TA NT I A TI ON. 807 

regards body. Philosophy never has determined what space 
is — never has determined that it has an actual being — but be 
space what it may, the fact that our own souls are in our 
bodies, yet illocal, shows that there is no contradiction in the 
ideas of being in space, in locality, yet not having locality 
in it. 

While, as regards the divine and human natures of Christ, 
we can, in both cases, define the general kind of presence, we 
cannot define in either the specific mode. It is so in the doc- 
trine of the Trinity : we define the general kind of unity and 
threefoldness, but not the mode. We may thoroughly know 
up to a certain point what a thing is not, and yet be wholly 
ignorant beyond a certain other point what it is. We may 
know that a distant object is not a house, not a man, not a 
mountain, but be wholly ignorant what it is, or we may know 
what it is without knowing how it is. In the great mysteries 
we can know that they are not this or that. We may know 
further, to a certain extent, what they are (their kind,) but the 
mode of their being is excluded from our knowledge by the 
fact that they are mysteries. If we knew that, they would 
be mystlries no more. 

Now the whole objection to the presence of Christ's body 
assumes a certain " quo modo " — starts with the assumption 
that Christ's body is limited as ours is, and that our doctrine 
assumes that it is present in mode and kind as ours is — both 
assumptions being absolutely false. Between the kind of pres- 
ence which Christ's body has in the Supper and that which 
our body has in the world, there is a parallel in some part, but 
not in all ; but as to the mode, there is, so far as we know, no 
parallel whatever. 

VI. There are several questions in the metaphysic of this doc- 
trine which are entirely distinct, yet are often confounded ; and 
as a result of this confusion, the doctrine of the true presence is 
thought to be encumbered with the same metaphysical contra- 
dictions as the figment of transubstantiation. 

The first question is, do attributes, qualities, or accidents inhere 
in substance f To this the true reply is, They do. No abstract 
attribute, quality, or accident can have an objective existence. 



808 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

Second. Is the reason of quality in the substance, so that 
essentially different qualities prove essentially different sub- 
stances, and essentially different substances must have essen- 
tially different qualities ? The answer is affirmative. 

Third. Does the character of a quality, as determined by the 
substance, have a real correspondence with the phenomenon in 
which the human mind is cognizant of the quality ? The 
answer is, Yes. 

If these answers be tenable, then the doctrine of transub- 
stantiation goes to the ground ; for it assumes that the quali- 
ties of bread and wine do not inhere in bread and wine, and 
may consequently exist abstractly from bread and wine : not 
only that a something which is not bread and wine may have 
all their qualities, but that a nothing, a non-essence, may have 
all their qualities. This theory, which is practically so materi- 
vi. objection.- that aliziiig, runs out speculatively into nihilism. It as- 
the same line of sumes that the reason of the qualities of bread and 

argument can be.. . r» -i -i -i ■ 

mged for tran- wine is not id the substauce of bread aDd wine ; 
substantiation. an( j that, consequently, the connection is purely 
arbitrary ; that the reason of the qualities of body and blood 
is not in the substance or nature of body and blood, and that 
consequently there is no reason in the essential nature of things 
why all bread should not have the qualities of human body and 
all body the qualities of bread. If the seeming loaf of bread 
may be Christ's body really, the seeming body of Christ might 
have been really a loaf of bread. We may be in a world in 
which nothing that seems is in correspondence with what is. 
The innocent family which, thinks that it is eating bread is 
indulging in cannibalism, and some unfortunate wretch is hung 
on supposition of his having committed murder, when, in fact, 
what he plunged his knife into was but a loaf of bread, clothed 
with the accidents of a man. Transubstantiation unsettles 
the entire ground of belief and thought, and conflicts with the 
veracity of God in nature, as it does with His testimony in 
His Word. 

A little reflection will show that not one of these metaphys- 
ical difficulties connects itself with the doctrine of the true 
sacramental presence. It grants that all the attributes of 






SUBSTANCE AND CONDITION 809 

bread inhere in the bread, and all the attributes of Christ's 
body inhere in His body : the reason of this inherence is not 
arbitrary ; but bread has its qualities because it is bread, and 
body has its qualities because it is body ; bread cannot have 
the qualities of body because it is not body, and body cannot 
have the qualities of bread because it is not bread ; and the 
phenomena by which the mind recognizes the presence of bread 
and body correspond with the qualities of each, so that the real 
'phenomenal evidences of bread are proofs of true bread, and the 
phenomenal evidences of body are proofs of true body. So far, 
then, it is clear that the doctrine of the true presence is in 
perfect accord with the sound metaphysic with which the doc- 
trine of transubstantiation conflicts. But it will be urged that 
the difficulty remains that the phenomenal evidences of the 
presence of true body are wanting in the Supper, and that our 
doctrine is so far in conflict with the testimony of the senses, 
equally with the Romish. This difficulty, which has often 
been triumphantly urged, has really no force. The senses 
may be competent to decide on the presence and reality of 
what is offered to them, but may be incompetent to decide 
whether a thing is really present, which does not come witbin 
their sphere. That I see the furniture in my room is proof 
that there is furniture there ; but that I do not see the air in 
my room is no proof that air is not there. That I see the 
bread in the Supper is proof that bread is there ; but that I do 
not see the body is no proof that the body is not there. But, 
says the objector, if the body be there, it must be clothed with 
the essential attributes of body, such as visibility and tangi- 
bility. You would see it and touch it, if it were there, on 
your own principles that properties inhere in substance. The 
theological answer to this is, that this objection assumes the 
natural presence of a natural body per se, while the doctrine 
to which it professes to be an objection is, that there is a 
supernatural presence of a supernatural body through the 
divine, with which it is one person. The metaphysical answer 
is, that though the properties which become known phenome- 
nally, inhere in substance, the same substance, under different 
conditions, exhibits different properties. I take a compound 



810 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

substance which we call ice : it is visible, tangible, hard, and 
very cold. If it is struck, it returns a sound. It will not take 
fire, and puts out fire, and occupies in space a few inches. It 
melts and flows, and becomes warm ; it occupies less space ; it 
still will not take fire, but puts out fire — still visible, still 
tangible, still audible on a stroke, and can be tasted. I 
increase its temperature to a certain point, and it becomes 
invisible, intangible, intensely hot, inaudible ; its volume has in- 
creased to between sixteen hundred and seventeen hundred cubic 
inches for every cubic inch as water. From its passivity it 
has become a force of the most tremendous potency, rivalling 
in its awful energy the lightning and the earthquake. The 
developed qualities of the substance which we first saw as ice, 
bear thousands swiftly over land and water, or, bursting their 
barriers, carry death and destruction with them. But science 
takes this substance and divides it into its elements. One of 
these is hydrogen. The heavy mass of ice has yielded the 
lightest of all known bodies ; the extinguisher of combustion 
has given a substance of high inflammability ; the hard has 
yielded one of the few gases which have never been liquefied. 
The other element, oxygen, is also one of the gases which have 
never been liquefied. The liquid of the world is produced by 
the union of two substances which cannot themselves be lique- 
fied. The ice has no magnetic power, the oxygen has. Take 
the oxygen of our original lump of ice, and introduce the hydro- 
gen of the same lump into it in a stream, and the two elements 
that quenched flame sustain it ; or bring them together in a mass, 
and apply fire to them, and the union is one in which a terrific 
explosion is followed by the reproduction of the water which, 
under the necessary conditions, may become ice again. The 
circle has been run. Now if, under the changed conditions of 
nature, such marvellous phenomenal changes may take place 
in connection with the elements, with no change in their sub- 
stance, who can say how far other changed conditions of na- 
ture may carry other substances in the sphere of nature ? Yet 
more, who can say what the changed conditions in the suprem- 
est sphere of omnipotence may effect phenomenally in the 
sphere even of the natural, and, a fortiori, in the sphere of the 



OUR LORD'S DECLARATIONS. 811 

supernatural ? Qualities inhere in substance ; but substance, 
under changed conditions, may put forth new qualities, or with- 
draw all the qualities that are objects of sense. That which 
can be seen, haudled, and felt as a body, we may justly believe 
is a body ; but that same body under different conditions, and 
at the will of Him it incarnates, may be present, yet neither be 
seen nor handled. 

It is not logical to say, because what I see is matter, what I 
do not see is not matter. The senses only show us what is, not 
what must be. " What is visible is matter," is logical : " what 
is matter is visible," is sophistry. " What bears all the tests 
to which the senses can subject a true body is a true body," is 
logical : " what is a true body must be subject to all the tests 
of the senses," is sophistry. What bore all the tests of all the 
senses, as water, was fairly proved to be such ; but the same 
water passed into conditions in which it was attested by none 
of the senses, yet was none the less water. Hence our senses 
can and do prove that there is bread and wine in the Supper ; 
but they do not and cannot prove that the body and blood of 
Christ are not there. The argument of the senses is conclu- 
sive against transubstantiation, but presents nothing whatever 
against the doctrine of the true presence. 

VII. A seventh objection often urged, different in form from 

some of the others, yet essentially one with them, is, that 

" Jesus declares that He will leave the world, and has left the 

world; therefore He is not present at His Supper." To this 

we answer, First, that if the expressions which speak of the 

absence of Jesus from the world are to be pressed without 

the Scriptural limitations as to the nature of His absence, 

it would follow that His divine nature is also vn. om- Lord's 

absent ; for these expressions, be their force what Declarations that 
' . He wil1 leave the 

it may, always refer to his whole person. He never world. 

says, My body or My human nature will go away, but " I go 
away." Now the " I " expresses the person ; if, therefore, the 
phrases are to be urged in such fashion as to preclude any sort 
of presence of His human nature, they will equally preclude 
any sort of presence of His divinity. Co-presence, that is, in- 
separable conjunction of the two elements of a person, is not 



812 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

only an essential of personality, but it is the primary essential 
element — such an element as is presupposed in every other, 
and without which the personal union could not exist. It is 
the minimum, not the maximum ; the first, not the last, de- 
mand of personality. But the objector admits that Christ is 
present according to His divinity, and must, therefore, admit 
that He is present according to His humanity. Secondly. Our 
Lord, when He speaks of His absence, makes it antithetical, 
not to His essential presence, but simply to one kind of that 
presence, to wit, the continually visible or purely natural. So 
strongly is this the case, that after His resurrection, in view 
of the fact that, though yet visibly upon earth, He was even 
then no longer in the old relations, He speaks of Himself as 
in some sense not present with them : "These are the words 
which I spake unto you while I was yet with you." (Luke xxiv. 
44.) Here our Lord, after giving the strongest proof that He 
was then present bodily, expressly, over against a mere presence 
of His spirit, or disembodied soul, declares, at the same time, 
that He is in some sense no longer with them ; that is, after 
the former manner, and in the old relations. Already, though 
on earth, he had relatively left them. He thus teaches us that 
there may be an absence, even with the most positive tokens 
of natural presence, as there may be a presence, with the most 
positive tokens of natural absence. The incarnate Son of God 
is not excluded in the words, " I will never leave thee, nor for- 
sake thee." He conforms to his own description of the good 
shepherd, as one who does not leave the sheep. (John x. 12.) 
When He says, " I came forth from the Father, and am come 
into the world," does it mean that he so came forth from the 
Father as no more to be present with Him, and so came into 
the world as to be absent from heaven (that Son of man who 
a is in heaven," John iii. 13) ? If it does not, then, when He 
adds, " I leave the world, and go to the Father," it does not 
mean that He so leaves the world as to be no more present in 
it, and so goes to the Father as to be absent from His Church. 
(John xvi. 28.) In a word, all the declarations in regard to 
Christ's absence are qualified by the expressed or implied 



OUR LORD'S DECLARATIONS. 813 

fact that the absence is after a certain kind or mode only — a 
relative absence, not a substantial or absolute one. There is a 
relative leaving in human relations. " A man shall leave 
his father and mother, and cleave to his wife," and yet he 
may remain under their roof; he leaves them relatively, in 
rising into the new relation. As representatives of the 
supremest domestic obligation, the parents are left; for his 
supremest domestic obligation is now to his wife. Hence, our 
Lord does not make the antithesis he shall leave parents, and 
go to his wife, but he shall leave father and mother, and shall 
cleave to his wife. A pastor may leave a congregation, as 
pastor, and yet remain in it as a member. A merchant may 
leave a firm, yet retain the room he had in their building. But 
these cases are not simply parallel. They illustrate the argument 
a fortiori. 

The presence of God is regarded either as substantial or as 
operative and phenomenal. The substantial may exist without 
the phenomenal ; the phenomenal cannot exist without the 
substantial. God's substantial presence is alike everywhere — 
as complete in the lowest depths of hell as in the highest glory 
of heaven ; as perfect in the foulest den of heathen orgies as 
in the assembly of saints, or on the throne before which sera- 
phim veil their faces. But His phenomenal presence varies 
in degrees. " Our Father who art in Heaven" marks His 
purest phenomenal presence, as making that Home to which 
our hearts aspire. As there is phenomenal presence, so is there 
phenomenal absence ; hence, God himself is frequently repre- 
sented in Scripture as withdrawing Himself, and as absent, 
though, in His essence, He neither is, nor can be, absent from 
any part of the Universe. The absence of God is, so to speak, 
a relative absence, a phenomenal absence ; the tokens of Provi- 
dence or grace by which this presence was actualized, not only 
to faith, but even to experience, are withdrawn. So the natu- 
ral phenomenal tokens of the presence of the undivided Christ 
are withdrawn, yet is He substantially still present, and as thus 
present is operative in the supernatural phenomena of His 
grace. 

Thirdly. Just as explicitly as Christ, the whole Christ, is said 



814 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

to be absent, is He affirmed to be present : " "Where two or 
three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the 
midst of them." (Matt, xviii. 20.) " Lo, I am with you alway, — 
all the days, — even unto the end of the world." (Matt, xxviii. 
20.) " If a man love me, he will keep my words : and my 
Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make 
our abode with him." (John xiv. 23.) The light of His pres- 
ence shone around Saul, and the words of His voice fell upon 
Saul's ear. (Acts ix. 4-7 ; xxii. 6-11.) " The night following " 
Paul's appearing before the council, " the Lord stood by him, and 
said, Be of good cheer, Paul, for as thou hast testified of me 
in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome." (Acts 
xxiii. 11.) Christ "filleth all in all." (Eph. i. 23.) He is" in the 
midst of the seven candlesticks ; walketh in the midst of them ; 
holdeth the seven stars in His right hand ; and the seven can- 
dlesticks are the seven churches, and the seven stars are the 
angels of the seven churches." (Rev. i. 13 ; ii. 20 ; iii. 1.) The 
glory of Christ ruling without vicars had been seen even by 
the Old Testament saints, and Jehovah had said to David's 
son, who was David's Lord, " Rule thou in the midst of thine 
enemies." (Psalm ex. 2.) 

If, then, it be logical to say the Scripture declares He is 
gone, therefore He is not here, it is equally logical to say the 
Scripture affirms that He is here, therefore He is not gone. 
Both are meant, relatively, and both are true, relatively. Both 
are equally true in the sense, and with the limitation which 
Scripture gives to both ; both are untrue in the sense which a 
perverse reason forces upon them. It is true both that Christ 
is gone, and that He is here ; he is gone, phenomenally, He is 
here, substantially. It is false that Christ is either gone or 
here, as the carnal mind defines His presence or His absence. 
Absent in one sense, or respect, He is present in another ; both 
senses being equally real, though belonging to different spheres 
of reality. The one belongs to the reality of the natural, in 
the sphere of the senses ; the other belongs to the reality of the 
supernatural in the sphere of faith. 

Fourthly. If it be urged that Christ " ascended into heaven" 
therefore He is not on earth, we reply, He not only has ascended 



OUR LORD'S DECLARATIONS. 815 

into heaven, but, according to the apostle, He has passed through 
the heavens (Heb. iv. 14),* " is made higher than the heavens " 
(Heb. vii. 26), and has " ascended up far above all heavens ' ; 
(Eph. iv. 10) ; but, with the apostle, we add, not that He may 
desert all things, or be absent from them, but "that He might 
fill all things." One of the grandest passages in Chrysostom f 
opens the true sense of these words : " Christ (at His Ascension) 
offered the first fruits of our nature to the Father ; and, in the 
Father's eye, because of the glory of Him who offered, and the 
purity of the offering, the gift was so admirable that He received 
it with His own hands, and placed it next to Himself, and said : 
' Sit Thou at My right hand. 7 But to which nature did God say, 
4 Sit Thou at My right hand ? ' To that very nature which 
heard the words, ' Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt 
return.' Was it not enough for that nature to pass beyond the 
heavens? Was it not enough for it to stand with angels? 
Was not such a glory ineffable ? But it passed beyond angels, 
left archangels behind it, passed beyond the cherubim, went 
up high over the seraphim, speeded past the Principalities, nor 
stood still till it took possession of the Throne of the Lord. 
Seest thou not what lieth between mid-heaven and earth ? Or, 
rather, let us begin at the lowest part. Seest thou not what 
is the space between hell (adou) and earth, and from earth to 
heaven, and from heaven to the upper heaven, and from that 
to angels, from them to archangels, from them to the powers 
above, from them to the very Throne of the King ? Through 
this whole space and height, He hath carried our nature." 
(Ecumbnius : " With His unclothed Divinity He, of old, filled 
all things ; but, incarnate, he descended and ascended, that 
He might fill all things according to His flesh (meta sarkos)." 
Theophylact : " As before He had filled up all things by His 
divinity, He might now fill all things, by rule and operation, in 
His flesh." — GrROTius : " That is above the air and ether, which 

*This is the correct rendering of the passage. So the Vulgate and Arabic: 
penetravit Coelos. (The iEthiopic makes it a passing through the heavens, in His 
coming into the world.) Von Meyer: Durch die Himmel gegangen. Stolz : 
gedrungen. Allioli, Gossner : die Himmel durchdrungen. De Wette : hindurch- 
gegangen. So McKnight, Bible Union, Noyes, Alford. 

fin Ascens. D. N. Jesu Chtisti. Opera, II. 534. 



816 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

region is called the third heaven, and the heaven of heavens, and 
in the plural ' heavens,' and by pre-eminence c heaven,' Acts ii. 
34 ; i. 10 ; 1 Cor. xv. 47 ; Eph. vi. 9." Many of the Calvinistic 
divines appeal to this passage as proving the omnipresence of 
Christ, and, by consequence, His Deity. 

But if Christ has ascended up far above all heavens, He has 
ascended according to the body. But if the body of Christ 
has ascended far above all heavens, by the processes of natural 
motion, it must have passed with a rapidity to which that of 
light is sluggish, and must have been capable of enduring pro- 
cesses which would not only have destroyed, but utterly dissi- 
pated, a natural body. But when a theory which calls in 
nature to its aid is compelled to acknowledge that a human 
body, fettered by the ordinary laws of natural presence, is hur- 
ried at a rate to which that of nearly twelve millions of miles 
in a minute is slowness itself, it asks for a trust in nature, 
what is harder to the mind than the most extreme demands 
of the supernatural. The nearest of the fixed stars, whose 
distance has yet been measured, is about twenty billions of 
miles from us, and requires three and a third years for its light 
to reach us. " It has been considered probable, from recon- 
dite investigations, that the average distance of a star of the 
first magnitude from the earth is 986,000 radii of our annual 
orbit, a distance which light would require 15J years to tra- 
verse ; and, further, that the average distance of a star of the 
sixth magnitude (the smallest distinctly seen without a tele- 
scope) is 7,600,000 times the same unit, to traverse which, 
light, with its prodigious velocity, would occupy more than 
120 years. If, then, the distances of the majority of stars 
visible to the naked eye are so enormously great, how are we 
to estimate our distance from those minute points of light dis- 
cernible only in powerful telescopes ? The conclusion is forced 
upon us that we do not see them as they appeared within a 
few years, or even during the lifetime of man, but with the 
rays which proceeded from them several thousands of years 
ago." * " The distance of a star whose parallax is 1" is about 
twenty trillions of English miles. A spider's thread before the 

* Hind's Astronomy, quoted in Chambers's Encyclopaedia. Article : Stars. 



OUR LORD'S DECLARATIONS. 817 

eye of a spectator, at the same distance, would suffice to cancel 
the orbit of the earth ; and the breadth of a hair would blot 
out the whole planetary system. But a star having this par- 
allax is at a moderate distance in comparison of innumerable 
others, in which no parallactic motion whatever can be distin- 
guished. Supposing the distance of one of them to be only a 
thousand times greater, a ray of light darted from it would 
travel between 3,000 and 4,000 years before it reached the 
earth ; and if the star were annihilated by any sudden convul- 
sion, it would appear to shine in its proper place during that 
immense period after it had been extinguished from the face 
of the heavens. Pursuing speculations of this kind, we may 
conceive, with Huygens, that it is not impossible that there 
may exist stars placed at such enormous distances that their 
light has not yet reached the earth since their creation." * 

low, if the presence of Christ is merely local, if He is above 
all heavens only by confinement to one place, His ascension to 
this one place involves something which may claim to be natu- 
ral, but which is really super-supernatural. If the doctrine 
of the supernatural invites faith, the figment of the super- 
supernatural demands credulity. Calvin interprets " above all 
heavens " as meaning " beyond this created universe. The 
heaven in which Christ is, is a place above all the spheres. . . . 
Christ is distant from us by interval of space . . . for when 
it is said above all the heavens, it involves a distance beyond 
that of the circumference beneath sun and stars, and, conse- 
quently, beyond that of the entire fabric of the visible Uni- 
verse. " 

VIII. Another shape which the same objection takes is: 
" Christ sitteth at the right hand of God, and therefore He is not 
on earth." This assumes that the " right hand of God " is a 
locality ; and to this it is sufficient to reply, by asking the 
question, If the right hand of God be a place, in what place 
is God's left hand? Where is the place that God's right hand 
is not? If God's right hand means place at all, it means, not 
one place, but all place. If, moreover, Christ's human nature 

* Encyclopaedia Britannica (Eighth edition), Art. : Astronomy, iv. 81. 
52 



818 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

cannot be on earth, because it sittetb at " God's right hand," 
neither can His "divine" nature be present, for the same 
reason ; for Christ sits at the right hand of God in His whole 
viii. objection, person, and according to both natures. If to sit at 
Christ is at God's God's right hand involves the limitations of local- 
ity, then the divine nature of Christ cannot be there. 
But to sit at the right hand of God has no reference what- 
ever to locality. To sit at the right hand of a king is a 
Biblical idiom for participation in the office, prerogatives, and 
honor of a king. " To sit at the right hand of God " means, 
therefore, " to be in that condition of plenary divine glory, 
majesty, and dominion which belongs to God." "We invert the 
argument, therefore: we say, Christ is at the right hand of 
God, therefore He is here. God is not mutilated nor divided ; 
He is without parts (impartibilis, Aug. Conf., Art. I.). Where- 
ever God is, His right hand is ; wherever His " right hand " 
is, He is ; therefore the " right hand of God," so far as the 
question of presence is involved, is everywhere. His throne is 
as wide as the Universe ! The " hollow of His hand " holds 
creation ! He who sits at God's right hand is omnipresent, 
just as he who is sitting at the right hand of an earthly mon- 
arch is " ipso facto " where that monarch is. "When Jesus rose 
from the dead, He said, " All power is given unto me in heaven 
and on earth ; " but the power of " presence " is a primary 
part, a necessary element of all power or omnipotence ; that is, 
omnipresence and omnipotence so cohere that no being can 
have one of them without having both ; and as Jesus says this 
power is given to Him, it must have been given to Him as 
man, for, as God, He held it essentially and necessarily. Jesus 
Christ our adorable Lord is not only essentially omnipotent 
and essentially omnipresent as God, but is personally omnipo- 
tent and personally omnipresent in that human nature also 
which has been taken into absolute and inseparable unity with 
the divine. All objections vanish in the light of His glorious 
and all-sufficient person. That the true and supernatural 
communion with his Lord in His " Supper " — which is the 
Christian's hope — can be, rests upon the fulness of the God- 
head dwelling in Christ bodily ; that it mil be, rests upon the 



"IN, WITH, UNDER." 819 

absolute truth of Him who cannot deceive us. He who is 
incarnate God can do all things : He who is the Truth will 
fulfil all His assurances. 

IX. It has been made an objection that the Formula in which 
the Lutheran theologians, combining different expressions in the 
symbols, usually set forth the truth of the presence, is not war- 
ranted, even if the Lutheran doctrine be true, inasmuch as 
the Scripture does not say that the body of Christ 
is " in, with, and under the bread." It is urged that (( IX - °^ ect 7 : „ 

77 o » m, with, under." 

we ought to adhere to the Biblical phrase, nay, that 
we attempt to substitute for a Biblical expression, which 
allows of various meanings, one of our own, which can have 
but one sense. It has been asked, If our Lord meant that 
His body was to be given "in, with, and under the bread," 
why did He not say so in so many words ? This feeble 
sophistry we have tried to dispose of, in a general way, 
in a previous discussion.* The men who urge it have their 
own phrases by which they ignore the direct teachings of 
the word of God. Let any man admit, without equivoca- 
tion, as the very letter of Scripture asserts, I. That what Christ 
commands us to take, eat, and drink, is His body and blood, 
and II. That the bread we break is the communion of His 
body, and the cup we bless the communion of His blood, and 
we shall have no quarrel with him, as we are sure he will have 
none with us, about the phrase, " in, with, and under," which 
means no more nor less than the Scripture phrase. Bread and 
wine are there, Christ's body and blood are there ; the bread 
and wine communicate the body and blood ; that is what the 
Scripture says, and this, and no more, is what the Church 
says. 

The implication that if Christ had used the phrase current 
in our Church, those who now reject our doctrine would have 
embraced it, was long ago noticed and answered by Luther. 
In his Greater Confession, he says : " If the text was, In the 
bread is my body, or, With the bread, or, Under the bread, 
then would the fanatics have cried, ' See ! Christ does not say, 

* Pp. 184-186. 



820 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

The bread is my body, but In the bread is my body.' Gladly 
would we believe a true presence if He had only said, ' This is 
my body.' That would be clear; but He only says, ' In the 
bread, with the bread, under the bread, is my body.' It conse- 
quently does not follow that His body is there. If Christ had 
said, In the bread is my body, they could more plausibly 
have said, Christ is in the bread spiritually, or by significance. 
For if they can find a figure in the words, This is my body, 
much more could they find it in the other words, In the bread 
is my body ; for it is a clearer and simpler utterance to say 
This is my body than to say In this is my body." Certainly 
it is a stronger affirmation of the divinity of Christ to say 
Christ is God, than to say God is in Christ, God is with Christ, 
or God is under the form of Christ. 

No phraseology can be framed which in itself will shut up 
men to a fixed sense who are determined in advance not to 
accept that sense. The history of the terms must be brought 
in, in such case, to silence, if it cannot convince. Yet even 
the amplest history which fixes a sense beyond the cavil, which 
is restrained by an ordinary self-respect, is not sufficient to 
overcome the persistent obstinacy of determined perverseness. 
There are no words in the past whose sense is more absolutely 
fixed by every attestation of the letter and the history than 
the words of the Tenth Article of the Augsburg Confession. 
Yet in the face of those clear words, and of that ample history, 
men have done with that Article just as they have done with 
God's word : " The body and blood," say they, quoting it, " are 
truly present " — that is, by the contemplation of faith — " under 
the species of bread and wine," as symbols of an absent thing, 
and " are imparted " figuratively, spiritually, and ideally u to 
those who eat" with the mouth of faith. Hence the Confes- 
sors " disapprove of those who teach the opposite doctrine ; " 
that is, disapprove of themselves and the Church they repre- 
sent: "Wherefore also the opposite doctrine," to wit, the 
Lutheran doctrine, "is rejected," and the Zwinglian, Bucerian, 
Calvinistic, is accepted. We are making no humorous exag- 
geration. The Tenth Article of the Augsburg Confession has 



CONTINUAL PRESENCE. 821 

actually been manipulated in such a way, by the class whom 
Luther characterizes, as to make the object of it the rejection 
of the faith held by the Lutheran Church, the vindication of 
her enemies, and the stultification of her friends. 

X. But it is argued that the doctrine of the continual personal 
presence of the humanity of Christ annihilates the very theory 
it is intended to aid ; for in making the body of Christ always 
present, everywhere, it renders impossible any special presence, 
such as the sacramental presence must be supposed to be. 
Hence it would follow that the Lord's Supper is no more a 
communion than any other supper is, and " this bread " no 
more than any other bread, the communion of Christ's body. 
This objection, if honestly urged, implies a complete ignorance 
of the doctrine of the true presence. The substantial presence, 
though presupposed in the sacramental, is not simply identical 
with it. The sacramental presence is the substantial presence 
graciously operative, in, with, and under the elements divinely 
appointed to this end. God is everywhere present, yet the 
Pagan cannot find Him for want of the divine means to actu- 
alize that presence. The Holy Ghost is everywhere present, 
but He can be found only in His Word and the x Continualpres . 
ordinances, and cannot be found in nature, or in encenoargu- 
any book of man. The divine nature of the Son ram entai pres- 
of God is personally present with every human ence - 
creature, nay, is in every believer, yet no man thereby becomes 
incarnate God. All substantia] presence, in the divine economy, 
becomes operative through means. The Lord's Supper is no 
exception to this rule. The relation of the supernatural reality 
conveyed, to the natural element conveying, is not that of 
mechanical union, or of passive copresence, but is that of sacra- 
mental union, of voluntary operativeness, in virtue of which 
the consecrated elements are the media of a communication 
which would not take place without them. Hence, while the 
generic, substantial presence of the whole Christ 'perpetually 
characterizes His state of plenary exercise of the prerogatives 
of His undivided divine-human person, the specific operative- 
ness of that presence which renders it sacramental is dependent 
upon Christ's will, and is confined to the Supper. " Christ," says 



822 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the Formula of Concord,* " can be with His body. . . wher- 
ever He wills (wo er will — ubieunque voluerit), and there espe- 
cially where He has promised that presence in His word, as in 
His Holy Supper." 

XI. An objection is urged by Kahnis, that, " according to the 
Lutheran doctrine, there is but bread and wine, not the body 
and blood of Christ, before the eating and drinking," and 
therefore were that doctrine true, Christ would not have said, 
This is my body, " but would have had to say, This is going 
to be my body when you eat it." "Were the point made by 
Kahnis correctly made, the inference justified would not be 
that the doctrine of the true presence is untenable, but that 
there ought not to be a limitation of the presence to the act 
of eating and drinking. But the point is not correctly made. 
The very opposite is the doctrine of the Lutheran Church. 
The Augsburg Confession says, " The body and blood of Christ 
xi. objection. are P res e nt in the Supper, and there communicated 
Nothing sacra- and received." The distinction is made between 
from sacramental the generic presence which is "in the Supper" and 
use - the specific participation made by the reception of 

the sacrament imparted. From the beginning of the Supper, 
strictly defined, (that is, from the time when Christ's consecrat- 
ing words are uttered in His name by His authority,) to its end, 
(that is, until the last communicant has received the elements,) 
or, in other words, from the first time to the last " in the Sup- 
per " in which, by Christ's authority, it is declared, " This is 
Christ's body, This is Christ's blood," that of which this affirma- 
tion is made, is His body, and 'is His blood. When He said, 
Take, eat, this is My body, undoubtedly He meant, Take, eat, 
because it is My body. The presence of the body in the order 
of thought precedes the command to Take, eat, though in point 
of time they are absolutely simultaneous. He imparts His 
presence that there may be a reason for the sacramental eating. 
But He imparts it with His word, by whose omnipotent force 
the element becomes a sacrament. Therefore, when He speaks, 
we know it is done. The mathematical moment need not 
concern us. "We know the sacramental moment. But the 

* 695, 92. 



OBJECTION. 823 

presence of the body is not mechanical, but voluntary; it is 
conditioned on the strict observation of the essentials of the 
institution. The body is present for sacramental impartation, 
and if the object of the external act of consecration precludes the 
communion, if the elements are merely to be reserved or carried 
about in procession for worship, there is no reason to believe 
that there is any sacramental presence of Christ's body what- 
ever. Hence the emphasis of the Confession, " in the Supper" 
cutting off in one direction an objection like that of Kahnis, 
and in another the Romish abuse of the reservation, proces- 
sion, and worship associated with the elements. 

In the Formula of Concord* the error of the Eomish Church 
is defined as this : " They feign that the body of Christ is 
present under the species of bread, even outside of the conduct- 
ing of the Supper (to wit, when the bread is shut up in the pyx, 
or carried about as a show and object of worship). For 
nothing has the character of a sacrament outside of God's 
command, and the use to which it has been appointed by 
Christ." This implies that within the entire conducting of 
the Supper, properly so called, as distinct from the mere pre- 
liminaries, or the things following it, the body of Christ is 
sacramen tally present ; and the principle that nothing has a 
sacramental character apart from the divine command and 
use, is properly limited by its antithesis to the abuses of the 
Romish Church. The doctrine of the Lutheran Church is, 
that the sacramental presence of the body and blood of Christ 
begins with the beginning of the Supper, and ends with the 
end of the Supper. The presence does not depend upon the 
individual eating ; the eating simply actualizes a presence 
existing ; that presence is vouchsafed on condition that the 
divine essentials of the institution be observed. " As to the 
consecration, we believe, teach, and confess, that the presence 
of the body and blood is to be ascribed solely to the Almighty 
power of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . The words of the institu- 
tion are by no means to be omitted. . . The blessing (1 Cor. 
x. 16) takes place through the repetition of the words of 
Christ." f "The true presence is produced, not by the eating, 

*670, 108 ; 665, 82. f Formula Concord. 530, 9. 



824 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

or the faith of the communicants, hut simply and solely hy the 
power of Almighty God, and the word, institution, and ordi- 
nation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For those most true and 
omnipotent words of Jesus Christ, which He spake at the 
original institution, were not only efficacious in that first 
Supper, but their power, virtue, and efficacy abide through all 
time ; so that in all places where the Lord's Supper is cele- 
brated in accordance with Christ's institution, by virtue of and 
in the power of those words which Christ spake at the first 
Supper, His body and blood are truly present, communicated, 
and received." * Luther says, " When (wenn-quando), accord- 
ing to His command and institution in the administration of 
the Lord's Supper, we say, ' This is My body,' then (so-tum) it 
is His body." f " Melancthon defines the sacramental action 
relatively to what is without, that is over against the inclusion 
and carrying about of the Sacrament ; he does not divide it 
against itself, nor define it against itself." J In a word, unless 
the sacramental action is entire, as Christ ordained it, His 
sacramental presence will not be vouchsafed at all ; if it be 
entire, His presence is given from its beginning to its end. If 
it be argued, in a little sophistical spirit, that we cannot tell 
till the distribution whether the action will be complete, it is 
enough to reply that we have all the assurance that we have 
in any case of moral certainty. Christ himself knows the end 
from the beginning. At the beginning, middle, and end of the 
Supper, the minister need not fear to assert, nor the people to 
believe, the very words of Christ, in their simplest literal force. 
It is not going to be but is, when Christ says it is. 

XII. The most extraordinary charge against the Lutheran 

doctrine of the Lord's Supper is that made by Roman Catholics 

and bv some of the Anglican Hisrh Church school, 

XII. Objection. .V . ° ,° . 

That the doctrine to wit, that the Lutheran doctrine, while it asserts 

Luth^VltOT 6 ^ e objective character of the presence of the body 

and blood of Christ, is able to make very little use 

* Formula Concord. 663, 74, 75. 

f Quoted in the Formula Concord. 664, 78, as confirmatory of its position. See 
also Gerhard : Loci. Loc. xxii., xvii., 194. (Ed. Cotta x. 327-829.) 
$ Luther. Opera Lat. Jen. iv. 586. 



EFFICACY OF THE SACRAMENTS. 825 

of the presence — in fact, might do as well practically without 
it. The objection urged, virtually is that the doctrine of justi- 
fication by faith makes null the benefits of the Lord's Supper 
as involving a true presence. 

On the general question of the efficacy of sacraments, Chem- 
nitz* has expressed the doctrine of the Church with his usual 
judgment : " If regard be had to the necessary dis- Chemnitz on 
tinction, the explanation is not difficult as to the the efficacy of the 

i . i • i i^t -i i n i,i Sacraments. 

mode in which God does confer grace and the sac- 
raments do not confer it? God the Father reconciles the 
world unto Himself, accepts believers, not imputing their tres- 
passes unto them. Certainly the sacraments do not confer 
grace in this manner, as God the Father Himself does. Christ 
is our peace. The death of Christ is our reconciliation. "We 
are justified by His blood. The blood of Christ cleanseth us 
from all sin. He was raised again for our justification. 
Assuredly Baptism does not purge away our sins in that man- 
ner in which Christ Himself does. There is the Holy Spirit's 
own proper efficacy in the conferring and application of grace. 
And the sacraments are certainly not to be put upon an equal- 
ity with the Holy Spirit, so as to be regarded as conferring 
grace in an equal and, in fact, an identical respect with the 
Holy Spirit Himself. Does it follow, then, that nothing is to 
be attributed to the sacraments ? Certainly the words of 
Scripture attribute something to the sacraments. But most 
carefully and solicitously, when we dispute concerning the vir- 
tue and efficacy of sacraments, must we avoid taking from 
God, and transferring to the sacraments what properly belongs 
to the grace of the Father, the efficacy of the Spirit, and the 
merit of the Son of God : for this would be the crime of idola- 
try ; nor are sacraments to be added as assisting and partial 
causes to the merit of Christ, the grace of the Father, and the 
efficacy of the Holy Spirit ; for this would involve the same 
crime. For there is no other name given under heaven among 
men. 4 My glory will I not give to another.' How, then, 
does Baptism save us ? How is it the laver of regeneration ? 
This, Paul explains very simply, when he says : ' He cleansed 

*Examen Concil. Trid. (Ed. Francof. a. M. 1707)295-298. 



826 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

the Church with the laver of water by the word.' Wherefore 
the Apology to the Augsburg Confession rightly says that 
the effect, virtue, and efficacy is the same in the word aud in 
sacraments, which are the seals of the promises, in which 
respect St. Augustine calls them visible words. The gospel is 
the power of God unto salvation to every one that belie veth, 
not because some magical power adheres in the letters, syl- 
lables, or sounds of the words, but because it is the me- 
dium, organ or instrument by which the Holy Spirit is 
efficacious, setting forth, offering, imparting (exhibens), dis- 
tributing and applying the merit of Christ and the grace of 
God to the salvation of every one that believeth : so also to 
the sacraments is attributed power or efficacy, not that in the 
sacraments outside or apart from the merit of Christ, the pity 
of the Father, and the efficacy of the Holy Spirit, is grace to be 
sought unto salvation ; but the sacraments are instrumental 
causes, so that through these means or organs the Father 
wishes to impart, give, apply, His grace : the Son to communi- 
cate His merit to believers : the Holy Ghost to exercise His 
efficacy to the salvation of every one that believeth. 

" In this way God retains His own glory, so that grace is 
sought nowhere but with God the Father ; the price and cause 
of the remission of sins and eternal life are sought nowhere 
but in the death and resurrection of Christ ; the efficacy of 
regeneration unto salvation is sought nowhere but in the opera- 
tion of the Holy Ghost. . . In the use of the sacraments faith 
does not seek or have regard to some virtue or efficacy in the 
outward elements of the sacraments themselves ; but in the 
promise which is annexed to the sacraments, it seeks, lays hold 
on, and receives the grace of the Father, the merit of the Son, 
and the efficacy of the Holy Spirit. . . There is here a twofold 
instrumental cause. One is, as it were, God's hand, by which, 
through the word and the sacraments in the word, he offers, 
imparts (exhibet), applies, and seals to believers the benefits 
of redemption. The other is, as it were, our hand, to wit, 
that, by faith, we seek, lay hold on, and accept those things 
which God offers and imparts (exhibet) to us through the 
word and sacraments. There is no such efficacy of sacraments 



EFFICACY OF THE SACRAMENTS. 827 

as if God, through them, infuses or impresses grace to salva- 
tion, even on those who do not believe or accept. The mean- 
ing of the sentence: 'It is not the sacrament which justifies, 
but the faith of the sacrament,' is not that faith justifies with- 
out accepting the grace which God offers and imparts in the 
word and sacraments, or that it accepts the grace without 
the means or organ of the word and sacraments. For the ob- 
ject of faith is the word and sacraments ; nay, rather, in the 
word and sacraments the true object of faith is the merit of 
Christ, the grace of God, and the efficacy of the Spirit. Faith 
justifies, therefore, because it lays hold of those things in the 
word and sacraments. God does not impart His grace in this 
life all at once, so that it is straightway, absolute, and finished, 
so that God has nothing more to confer, man nothing more to 
receive ; but God is always giving and man is always receiv- 
ing, so as ever to be more closely and perfectly joined to 
Christ, to hold more and more firmly the pardon of sins ; so 
that the benefits of redemption, which have been begun in us, 
may be preserved, strengthened, and increased. Wherefore 
the sacraments are not idle or bare signs, but God, through 
them, offers to believers His grace, imparts it, applies it, and 
seals it. . . Between the promise and faith the relation is so 
close that the promise cannot benefit a man without faith, nor 
faith benefit a man without the promise. . . In this sense Lu- 
ther says : ' The sacraments were instituted to excite, nourish, 
strengthen, increase, and preserve faith, so that whether in 
the promise naked, or in the promise in the vesture of the sacra- 
mental rite, it may grasp and accept grace and salvation.' " In 
discussing more particularly the benefits of the Eucharist, the 
same great writer says : * " Faith, in the reception of the 
Eucharist, should reverently consider and, with thanksgiving, 
embrace all the riches and the whole treasure of the benefits, 
which Christ the Mediator, by giving up His body and shed- 
ding His blood, has purchased for His Church. . . That they 
also receive the remission of sins, who are conscious of grievous 
crimes, and do not renounce them, but cherish still the pur- 
pose of evil-doing, who bring no fear of God, no penitence or 

*Examen Concil. Trid. (Ed. Francoff. a. M. 1707,) 364, 366. 



828 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

faith, but knowingly persist in sins contrary to their con- 
sciences, is something which in no manner whatever is taught 
by us. For among us men are seriously admonished that 
those who do not repent, but who persevere in sins against 
conscience, eat and drink judgment to themselves, and become 
guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. For the offence 
against GTod is aggravated by their taking the Eucharist in 
impenitence, and treating with indignity the body and blood 
of the Lord. In order that the eating may profit men, it is 
necessary that they should have penitence, the fear of God, 
which works dread of sin and of His wrath against it and 
destroys the purpose of evil-doing. Faith also is necessary, 
which seeks and accepts remission of sins in the promise." 
" Inasmuch as in the Eucharist we receive that body of Christ 
which was delivered for us, and that blood of the New Testa- 
ment which was shed for the remission of sins, who can deny 
that believers there receive the treasure of all the benefits of 
Christ ? For they receive that in which sins are remitted, in 
which death is abolished, in which life is imparted to us ; that 
by which Christ unites us to Himself as members, so that He 
is in us, and we in Him. . . ' Not only does the soul rise 
through the Holy Ghost into a blessed life, but the earthly 
body is brought back by that food to immortality, to be raised 
to life in the last day ' (Cyril). In the Eucharist, therefore, 
we receive a most sure and admirable pledge of our reconcilia- 
tion with God, of the remission of our sins, of immortality, 
and of the glory to come. And in very deed Christ hath 
abundantly poured out in this sacrament the riches of His 
divine love toward men ; for that body which He delivered for 
us unto death, He gives to us in the Supper for food, that by 
it, as divine and life-giving food, we may live, may be nurtured 
and grow, and strengthen, and so turned to Him as never to 
be separated from Him, as Augustine piously says, on the Per- 
son of Christ : ' Thou shalt not change me unto Thee, but 
Thou shalt change Thyself unto me.' " 

Gerhard sums up the benefits of the Lord's Supper as either 
principal or secondary : " The principal fruits are : the show- 
ing of the Lord's death, the forgiveness of sins, the sealing of 



IMPORTANCE OF THE DOCTRINE. 829 

faith, spiritual union with Christ. The secondary are: re 
newal of the baptismal covenant, the arousing of love to God 
and our neighbor, the confirmation of patience and hope, the 
attestation of our resurrection, the serious amendment of life, 
public confession of Christ."* 

It is not in the power of language to go beyond the state- 
ment of the blessings which the Lutheran Church believes to 
be associated with the believing reception of the Lord's Sup- 
per. The quarrel of Romanists and their friends with her is 
not that she diminishes the benefits of the Supper, but that 
she makes them conditioned on faith. The real thing with 
which they quarrel is the doctrine of justification by faith. 

We have dwelt at what may seem disproportioned length 
upon the doctrine of the Lord's Supper ; but we have done so 
not in the interests of division, but of peace. At this point 
the division opened, and at this point the restoration of peace 
must begin. Well-set bones knit precisely where they broke ; 
and w r ell knit, the point of breaking becomes the strongest in 
the bone. The Reformation opened with a prevailingly con- 
servative character. There lay before it not merely a glorious 
possibility, but an almost rapturous certainty, waiting upon 
the energy of Reform guided by the judgment of Conserva- 
tism. The Reformation received its first appalling check in 
the invasion of its unity in faith, by the crudities of Carlstadt, 
soon to be followed by the colder, and therefore yet more mis- 
chievous, sophistries of Zwingle. The effort at reformation, in 
some shape, was beyond recall. Henceforth the question was 
between conservative reformation and revolutionary radical- 
ism. Rome and the world-wide errors which stand or fall 
with her, owe their continued baleful life, not so much to the 
arts of her intrigue, the terror of her arms, the wily skill and 
intense devotion of Jesuitism and the orders, as they owe it 
to the division and diversion created by the radicalism which 
enabled them to make a plausible appeal to the fears of the 
weak and the caution of the wise. But for this, it looks as if 
the great ideal of the conservative reformation might have 

* Gerhard's Ausf. Erklaer. d. heilig. Taufe u. Abendm. 1610, 4to, ch. xxiii. Do. 
Loci Theolog. Loc. xxii. ch. xx. 



830 CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION. 

been consummated ; the whole Church of the West might 
have been purified. All those mighty resources which Rome 
now spends against the truth, all those mighty agencies by 
which one form of Protestantism tears down another, might 
have been hallowed to one service — Christ enthroned in His 
renovated Church, and sanctifying to pure uses all that is 
beautiful in her outward order. The Oriental Church could 
not have resisted the pressure. The Church Catholic, trans- 
figured by her faith, with robes to which snow has no white- 
ness and the sun no splendor, would have risen in a grandeur 
before which the world would have stood in wonder and awe. 
But such yearnings as these wait long on time. Their con- 
summation was not then to be, but it shall be yet. 



INDEX. 



(The Roman Numerals indicate the entire Dissertations so numbered.) 



Adam, Original state 378 

Fall 379 

Alone mentioned 380 

Adlaphorce 321 

Aldine, Greek Text 96, 98 

Allegory, Nature of 618 

Allen, George, Prof., Communion 

of Priests 621, n 

Alting, H., Lutheran and Re- 
formed Churches 133 

Ambrose, Lord's Supper 635, 675 

America, Lutheran Church in, 

General Council of. 162 

Church in, the Fathers 

of. 218 

American and German 208 

Anabaptists, Pelagian 447 

Infant Baptism.... 574-576, 581 

Andrew 297, 309 

Antliropology , Original sin 365 

Apology of Augsburg Confes- 
sion 275-280 

Value of. 279 

Original sin 373, 375, 378 

Infant Baptism 576 

Aquinas, (Hymn,) Lord's Supper 754 

Arnold, Dr., Germans 155 

Articles, Electoral-Torgau 293 

Audin, Cause of Reformation 3 

History of Luther 10, 22 

Luther's visit to Rome 25 

Luther's Bible 32 

Luther and Madeleine 43 

Augsburg Confession, 31, 179, VI. 

Variata 180, 243-248 

on original sin 409 

on necessity of Bap- 
tism 562 

Bibliography of. 201, n 

History of 212 

Bibliography, 212, n. 220, n 

Preparation of. 216 

Preliminaries to 216 

Bibliography of..... 216, n 

Authorship of 220 

Luther's relations to 220 



Augsburg Confession, 

Luther's opinion of 234 

Object of. 242 

Presentation of. 242 

Texts of. 242-253 

Manuscripts of. 244, n 

Editions and Translations 

of 248 

Bibliography of 248, n 

Structure of 253 

■ Divisions of 253 

— Value of 255 

Protest against Romanism.. 255 

Interpretation of, Bibliogra- 
phy 255, n 

Political value of 257 

Value as a Confession and 

Apology 258 

A centre of associations 259 

A guide to Christ 259 

Value for the future 260 

Dogmatic works on, Bibli- 
ography 260, n 

as a creed, right reception 

of 260-267 

Dr. Shedd on 332-337 

"Romanizing Elements"... 342 

Texts of Latin and German 356 

Melancthonian & For- 
mula 358 

Papal Confutation 360 

Commission on 361 

Original Sin 363 

Article II. 130, 244, IX. 

III. X. 

IX. 130, XL 

X. XII. 

" XIII. 

" XIV. 

Perversion of 820 

" In the Supper " 823 

XIII 339 

XIX 374 



Augustine, Original Sin 361, 362, 407 

Traducianism 371 

Pelagianism 447 

831 



832 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Augustine, Person of Christ 469-510 

Infants, believers 581 

Tree of Life 588 

Lord's Supper, 675,746, 749, 750 

751. 

(?) personal unity of man... 805 

Augustus, Elector of Sax- 
ony 296, 308 

Baler, Lord's Supper 770 

Baptism, Lutheran Doctrine of 
129, XL 

Relations of, to Original Sin 427 

Necessity of. 427, 557 

in what sense 430, 562 

not absolute 431, 563 

Luther 431 

Bugenhagen 432 

Hoffman 433 

Feuerlin , 433 

Carpzov 433 

Ordinary means of grace 439-444 

Alford 442, 443, 444 

Calvin 444 

only means of universal ap- 

plication 444 

Disputes in regard to 519 

Immersion not essential to 519 

use of the word in Augsburg 

Confession 520 

force of word "begiessen" 527 

-531. 

Luther, translation of words 

connected with 531-536 

Luther, Etymologies of 

words 536 

did not regard Immer- 
sion as necessary 540-542 

Mode in Lutheran Liturgies 541 

542 

Testimonies of Drs. Kurtz 

and Schmucker 543 

views of the old Lutheran 

Divines 543, 544 

Internal efficacy of 545-557, 583 

584. 

Not mere water 558, 583 

Regeneration does not al- 
ways follow 559 

Difference between " essen- 
tial" and "necessary".. 562 

Lutheran theologians on ne- 
cessity of 564 

Calvinistic and Lutheran 

views compared 570-574 

Infant, argument for... 576-581 

Basis Confessional of Luther- 
an Church, Reasons for 179 



Bayle, Peter, Fathers on Lord's 

Supper 663 

Bellarmine, Romanism and 

Calvinism 628 

Consubstantiation 772 

Bible, Luther's 8, 12, 32 

in Middle Ages 7 

First Polyglot 8 

where it fell open 9 

the only Rule 14 

human explanations of 185 

Birth, New, Necessity of abso- 
lute 415-439 

Infants need 416 

Infants capable of 418 

Holy Spirit, sole author of.. 420 

Baptism one ordinary mean 439 

-445. 

Body, Spiritual 806 

Booh of Concord 127, VII. 

against persecution 144 

Bread and Wine, Species of... 620 

in what sense "the body and 

blood of Christ" 673-678 

metaphorically used 717 

breaking of 719 

no symbol of crucifixion 723 

Brentius, Hallam on 76, n 

Lord's Supper 761 



Bllddeus, Lord's Supper 770 

Calovius, Consubstantiation 769 

Calvin on Luther 132 

signed unaltered Augsburg 

Confession 180 

Infant Regeneration 420 

._ Confession of Faith 490 

Lord's Supper 493-495, 630, 636, 

756. 

Faith in Infants 580 

as a Lutheran Minister 756 

Calvinism self-contradictory 435, 436 

Socinianizing tendency of... 489 

View of Baptism 570 

compared with the 

Lutheran view 571-573 

Carlstadt 27, 30, 608, 666 

Carpzov, Consubstantiation 768 

Catechism, Luther's 32 

Heidelberg ... 351-353, 487, 488 

Genevan 483 

Ceremonies, Ecclesiastical 321 

Charles V., Reformation 18 

at Augsburg 31 

at Luther's grave 44 

Chemnitz 309 

on Personal Presence of 

Christ 466-475 



INDEX. 



833 



PAGE 

Chemnitz, Body of Christ 469 

meaning of Baptizo 543 

Con substantiation 763 

Sacraments, efficacy of 825 

Christ, Descent into hell 320 

Person of, Formula of Con- 
cord 316, 514-517 

Lutheran and Reform- 
ed Doctrine of X. 

Sacramental Presence of.... X. 

Bibliography 456, n 

Presence, Doctrine of ... 458, 469 

not local 458 

but true 459-461 

Ascension of 466, 814-817 

Body of. 469 

inseparable unity of His 

person ., 481 

in heaven 483, 484 

Resurrection Life of 484 

Lutheran Doctrine Scrip- 
tural 501-507 

Sustained by the 

Fathers 508-510 

Scholastics 510 

some modern Ro- 
manists 511 

Metaphysicians... 511 

admissions of Cal- 

vinists 511, 512 

Worship of, according to 

His human nature 512 

body and blood of, Sacra- 
mental Communion 629 

person, Unity of, not dis- 
solved by death 794 

Christianity, Essential idea of.. 113 
Christians, whom may we recog- 
nize as 192 

Chrysostoni, Omnipresence of 

Christ , 509 

Tree of Life 588 

Lord's Supper 635, 660, 740, 746 

748-751. 

Ascension of Christ 815 

Church 195 

Church, Ancient, Sacramental 

presence 657-663 

sustains Antithesis in Art. 

X 725-752 

Church, Evangelical Protestant.. 114 
Lutheran, Reformed Testi- 
mony to 132 

Controversies of 147 

Theological Science in 148 

149, 151. 

in United States 150 

Education in 151 

53 



PAGE 

Church, Missions in 152 

Church Constitution... 152 

Fidelity of, to her Con- 
fessions 196 

Acquaintance with, im- 
portance of 211 

Relations to Zwinglian- 

Calvinistic churches 325 

History and doctrines 

of, some mistakes in 

regard to VIII. 

not Romanizing 187 

Theological Seminary 

of, at Philadelphia ... 164 

Charity of. 142 

Life in 154 

Nationalities of 155 

Mission of, in America 159 

Future of 161 

Relationsto other Com- 
munions 138 

Worship, divine in 153 

Church, Reformed, Import- 
ance of Lutheran Church to 311 

Chytrwus 311 

Claude, Lutherans 136 

Corner 311 

Communicatio idiomatum 476 

-481. 
Communion, Sacramental, in 

what sense oral 461 

spiritual 462-465 

who receive ? 463 

in one kind 621 

of the unworthy 641-648 

(Koinonia, 1 Cor. x. 16.) 

Force of word 629-641 

Assembly, Westminster, an- 

notat 638 

Baumgarten, S. J 639 

Bishop's Bible 637 

Calovius 639 

Clarke, Adam 638 

Conybeare and Howson 638 

Coverdale 637 

Genevan Version 637 

Gill 639 

Hall, Bp 638 

Hammond 638 

Henry, Matthew 638 

Hodge, Dr 639 

Hussey 637 

Macknight 638 

Nevin, J. W., Dr 639 

Olshausen 640 

Parkhurst 639 

Pool 637 

Riickert 641 



834 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Communion, Schmucker, S. S., 
Dr 639 

Sharp, Arbp 638 

Tyndale 637 

Wilson, Bp 637 

Complutensian Text 96, 99 

Concomitance, Sacramental, 

rejected 620 

Concord, Book of. VII. 

Contents of 268, 275 

repressed multiplica- 
tion of creeds 274 

Concord, Formula of 288 

History 289 

Reception 302 

Merits 305 

Value 305,328 

- plan 312 

doctrines 312, 348 

Melancthon in 326 

closing words of 328 

Dr. Shedd on 345 

" The Bread is Christ's 

body " 677 

modes of presence 762 

When is the presence 

vouchsafed? .... 823, 824 

Suabian- Saxon... 294 

Confession, what shall be our?.. 167 

Confessions, distinctive 168 

Fidelity to 169 

object of theological 

training 176 

Ministerial efficiency 

dependent on 177 

Subscription to 177 

notinconsistent with author- 
ity of Rule of Faith 184 

— not Romanizing 186 

Importance of 204 

Relations of, to Reformation 205 

the Reformed 352 

Confutation, Papal, of Augs- 
burg Confession 624 

History and Literature of 626, n 

Consecration in the Supper 179 

Conservatism of Lutheran Ref- 
ormation 49, 202 

Ranke on 84 

Consubstantiation rejected by 

Lutheran Church 130, 33£) 

Proof of this : 

1. From Confessions of Lutheran 
Church, Formula, 130, 762. 

2. Lutheran Divines: Luthei% 130, 
757; Brentius, 761; Chemnitz, 764; 
Andreas, 764; Hutter, 758, 766; 
Osiander, 767; Mentzer, Gerhard, 



PAGE 

340; Carpzov, 768; Musseus, Scher- 
zer, 768; Calovius, Quenstedt, 769; 
Baier, 340; Leibnitz, 340; Buddeus, 
770; Cotta, 340, 771; Pfaff, 775; 
Mosheim, 341 ; Reinhard, 341. 

3. Roman Catholic Divines, 771 ; 
Perrone, Beccan, Moehler, Wise- 
man, 772; Bouvier, 773. 

4. Calvinistic Divines, 755-757, 759 : 
Bucer, 340, 773 ; Musculus, Whit- 
aker, Salmasius, Stapfer, 774 ; 
Waterland, 130; D'Aubigne, 131. 

Copula 696 

interpretation of 696 

Bagster's Gr. Lex 696 

Carlstadt 695 

■ Green's Gr. Lex 696 

Hoffman, D 696 

Kahnis 696, 697, 704, 705 

Luther 696 

Keckerman 695 

CEcolampadius 695, 705 

Piscator 696 

Robinson 696, 697 

Schaff 696, 697 

Wendelin 694 

Corpora Doctrince 291 

Corruption, the state of. 373 

Cotta, Lord's Supper 340, 771 

— salvation of Pagan infants.. 564 

Council, General, of E. L. 
Church in America, Fundamental 

Principles 162 

Creation 797 

Creationism, immediate 369 

Creed, Apostles 9 168 

— ! implies the Communicatio 

idiomatum 316 

Creeds, wide 183 

fallacy of argument for 190 

may a church change 269 

growth of 270 

defining of. 272 

Formula of Concord on 313 

Crypto- Calvinism 292 

Cup in Supper 777-782 

Cyril of Jerusalem, Lord's 
Supper 675 

Dannliauer, Calvinistic view of 

Christ's presence 500 

Death no regenerating power 426 

Denmarh 156 

Development, Shedd on 330 

Dreams, interpretation of 614 

Election, Calvinistic 434 

Infant 435 



INDEX. 



835 



Election, unconditional, and Pe- 

lagianism 584 

Elements, Worship of, or of 

Christ in 622 

Emser, Counter-translation.. 104-107 
Ephes. iv. 10., "above all heav- 
ens" 815-817 

Erasmus, Greek Text 97 

Luther and 66 

Error and Errorists 143 

Course of 195 

Formula of Concord on 325 

Eternity 798 

Eucharist 130, 314, 337, X., XII. -XIV. 
Eutychianism, Lutheran doc- 
trine not in affinity with 475, 476 

Evangelical, name of Lutheran 

Church 116 

Excommunication, Force and 

extent of 191 

Exorcism 135, 136, 154 

Facundus, Lord's Supper 675 

Faith, Rule of. 14-17, 165 

Supreme Authority of. 184 

■ Formula of Concord on 313 

Fundamental principles of.. 163 

Confession of 166 

Church, Restoration of 200 

Fathers, use of, in Reformation.. 15 

on Lord's Supper 635, 725, 740 

Rules in interpretation of... 726 

Figure, in what sense used by 

Fathers 741 

use of word, by Tertullian.. 742 

Figures, Grammatical and Rhe- 
torical 701 

Flacius, Illyricus, Baptizo 544 

Fundamentals, union in 181 

• nature of 182, 183 

Gaudentius, Lord's Supper 674 

Geneva, Church of, Lutherans 

and Reformed 137 

Gerhard, Baptism 544 

"Touto" and " Arlos " 671 

" The bread is Christ's 

body " 677, 678 

Gerhart, E. V-, Dr., Article of, 

Reviewed X. 

Gerlach, Stephen, Baptism 544 

German Character 155 

Language, Luther 13 

Germany, Reformation in 17 

God, Right hand of 485, 817 

Goehel, Luther, author of Ref- 
ormation 125 

Lutheran Church 126. 151, 155 



PAGE 

Gospel and Law, Formula of Con- 
cord 314 

Grauer, Baptism 437 

Gregory Nyssen, Lord's Sup- 
per 675 

Gregory the Great, Lord's 

Supper 750 

Service of. 753 

Grotius, " all heavens " 816 

Guilty of the Body and Blood, (1 

Cor. 'xi. 27-29) 642-648 

Calvinists, Gualther, Meyer, 

Pareus on 648 

Syriac version 642 

Gustavus Adolphus 156 

Gustavus Vasa 156 

Hamilton, Jas., Dr., Resurrec- 
tion Life of our Lord 484 

Hamilton, Wm, Sir, 791, 792, 803 

804. 
Hebreivs iv. 14, "passed through 

the heavens" 816 

Hegel, Fall 376 

Philosophy 790, 802 

Hell, Descent of Christ into 320 

jffe^pe, Calvinistic view of Baptism 570 

Heretics and Heresy 143, 144 

Ancient, Lord's Supper 752 

High Churchism, Lutheranism 

not 141 

Hollazius, Fall 377 

Huguenots, Sympathy with, ex- 
pressed in Book of Concord 145 

Hunnius, Salvation of Pagan In- 
fants 564 

Hllttev, Baptism, necessity of 562 

Huygens 817 

Hypostatic Union 798 

Idealism, Theological 788 

Transcendental 789 

Subjective 790 

Objective 790 

Realistic 791 

Idiomatum Communicatio , 

Formula of Concord.... 316-320 

Apostles' Creed 316 

Nicene Creed 317 

Athanasian Creed 317 

Augsburg Confession 317 

Ignatius, Lord's Supper 635, 727-730 

Impossible, the 796 

Imputation 382 

Infants, unbaptized, 431, 561, 582, 583 

sin of IX. 

elect 434, 571-574 

of unbelievers 433 



836 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Infants of heathens 433, 561-564 

salvation of...., 434 

regeneration of 569 

consequences of deny- 
ing 570 

faith of 578-581 

defined by Chemnitz... 579 

Calvinistic admissions 

in regard to 580 

held by Ancient Church 581 

Integrity, the state of 371 

Irenceus, Lord's Supper 635, 736-739 

Doellinger 737 

Dorner 738 

Moehler 738 

Semisch 738 

"Is" cannot mean "is a symbol 

of" 612-619 

De Wette on .' 690 

Meyer, Olshausen, Lange, 

the Calvinists 691 

cannot involve Metaphor.... 692 

Calvinistic theory involves 

that it does 695 

yet is abandoned by best 

Calvinistic writers: Kec- 
kermann, Piscator, Rob- 
inson, Schaff 695-697 

Luther's renderings of 697 

inflexible character of. 698 

reductio ad absurdum 699 

See "Copula." 

Jerome, Lord's Supper 635, 674 

John of Damascus, Lord's 

Supper 635, 636 

Judas at the first Supper 645 

Judgment, private , 169 

use and abuse of. 171 

limitation of. 172, 175 

abuse of, not to be re- 
strained by persecu- 
tion 173 

how to be re- 
strained 174 

Justification, Formula of Con- 
cord 313 

Justin Martyr, Lord's Supper 635, 
730-735. 

Doellinger 735 

Dorner 735 

Ebrard 735 

Kahnis 735 

Thiersch 734 

Kahnis, Lutheran Church 146 

Lord's Supper, on 678 

controverted 690 



Kahnis adds to, and contradicts 

Scripture 722 

misstates Lutheran Doc- 
trine 822, 823 

Kind and Mode 807 

Knox, A., Lord's Supper 776, n 

Kcellner, Augsburg Confession, 

Luther's 238 

Apology 276 

Krotel, Dr., Schenkel's Article... 513 
Kurtz, H., Lutheran Church 125 

Lata and Gospel, Formula of Con- 
cord 314 

third use of 314 

Life, Tree of 586 

Bush 589 

Delitzch 588 

Gregory Nazianzen 588 

Vatablus 588 

Light 816 

Lightfoot, Infant Baptism 577 

Limhorch, Calvinistic doctrine 

of Lord's Supper 499 

Liturgies, Ancient, Sacramental 

presence 752 

Lord's Day 132 

Luther, Theses 1-4, 27 

Bible, Translation of... 8, 12, 32 

versions preceding 13 

first sight of 9-11' 

New Testament, Transla- 
tion of III. 

Boyhood, preparation 

for 89 

Education 89 

Hebrew and Greek .... 90 

Fritzsche 90 

Piety 90 

German Style 91 

Translations, earliest 92, 93 

First Draft 93 

Versions and texts 

used 93-100 

order of books.... ..100, 101 

Revision 101 

Early impressions 102 

: enemies 103-107 

latest revisions 107 

advances of literature 108 

rival translations 109 

defects and excellen- 
ces 109,110 

— Revision Ill 

early studies 10 

a Reformer because a Chris- 
tian 18 

pictured by pencil and pen II. 



INDEX. 



837 



Luther, childhood, 23 

youth 24 

university life 25 

visits Rome 25, 26 

begins the Reformation 27 

at Diet of Worms 28 

at the Wartburg 29 

struggle with fanaticism 29 

and Melancthon 30 

— '■ Marriage 30 

and Zwingle 30 

Augsburg Confession 31, 221,222 

Catechisms 32 

occasion 284 

character 284 

authority 285 

opinions . 286 

Church Service 33 

in private life 33 

at Christmas 34-36 

Letter to little Hans... 36, 37, n 

Madeleine 38-43 

Last days and death 43, 44 

Charles V. at his tomb 44 

Characterized , Atter- 

bury 50 

Audin 5, 25, 26, 32, 43 

Bancroft, A., Rev 50 

Bancroft, G 72 

Bayle 51 

Bengel 31 

Bossuet 53 

Bower 53 

Brewster 55 

Buddeus 59 

Bunsen 65 66 

Calvin 132 

Carlyle 23, 28, 39, 56 

Chemnitz 57 

Claude 57 

Coleridge 58, 59 

Cox 60 

Coxe 59 

Cyclopedia Br. Soc 63 

Rees' 65 

D'Aubigne" 60 

Bictionnaire Historique 61 

D'Israeli '. 61 

Dcederlein 62 

Dupin 63 

Erasmus 66-70 

Fritzsche 90 

Gelzer 70 

Gerhard 73 

Guericke 71 

Guizot 71 

Hagenbach 73 

Hallam 74 



PAGE 

Luther, Characterized, Hare 78 

Hase 78 

Heine 45 

Herder 80 

Kahnis 82 

— — Kidder 52 

Kohlrausch 72 

Lessing 45 

Melancthon 85,86,89 

Menzel 46 

Palavicini 83 

Ranke 84 

Raumer, V. F 83 

Reuss 109 

Robertson 71 

Schlegel 46-50 

Smythe 71 

Stang 85 

Vaughan 70 

Wieland 85 

Zwingle 132 

Character, Summary of... 86, 87 

unity, desire for 138 

Swiss Church 139 

Waldenses 140 

on mode of Baptism 520 

the Jewess 520-524 

Catechisms, on Baptism 524-527 

on Lord's Supper 819, 823 

JjUtheran, name 117-122 

Lutheran Church, distinctive 

principle of 123 

character and claims of 124 

compared with other 

churches 125,126 

Doctrines of 126 

misrepresented 129 

neither Arminian nor Cal- 

vinistic 127 

Rule of Faith, and Creed ... 128 

Confessions of, Shedd on.... 345 

Lutheranism, historical 180 

Man, Fall of ; 376 

personal unity 804 

Manna, Type of Christ's Body. 

Cyril 598 

Gerhard 598 

Lombard 598 

Marburg, Colloquy at, Arti- 
cles of 355 

Original Sin 427 

Marheineke, Fathers 726, 738 

Martyr, Peter, Faith of Infants 580 

Lord's Supper 636 

Martyrs of the Word 8 

Mary, the Virgin 381, 382 

Matter and Spirit 486 



838 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Madcentins, Lord's Supper 675 

Melancthon, correspondence 

with Luther 227 

Relations to Augsburg Con- 
fession 219 

Luther's admiration of 234 

Formula of Concord.... 326, 327 

Original Sin 362 

definition of........ 407, 408 

on inseparable unity of 

Christ's person 482 

Metaphor, none in the Lord's 

Supper 613 

nature and laws of. 701 

Metaphysic of doctrine of Sup- 
per, distinct questions on 805 

sound, in harmony with doc- 
trine of true presence 809-811 

Metonymy 701, 702 

Michelet, on Luther 3 

3Iill,J. Stuart 801, 802, 804 

Mode and Kind 807 

Musculus 311 

Name, Denominational 115 

Natural 800 

Nature of things 800 

Navarre, King of 132 

Nestoriauism 475 

Nevhl, J. W., Dr., Lutheran Church 157 
Nothing, privative and negative 397 

Objects, the Sacramental 599-601 

(Ecolampadius, Lord's Supper 666, 
756. 

(JEcumenius, Ascension 815 

Omnipresence 797 

Onus probandi rests on oppo- 
sers of Scripture doctrine of Sup- 
per .... 799 

Oral Manducation 461-463 

Original Sin, See Sin, Original.. 280 
Osiander, A., Consubstantia- 
tion 767 

Pagans and Idolaters, calumnies 

in regard to Lord's Supper 752 

imitations of Supper 752 

Paschal Lamb, type of Christ 592 

-597. 
Passover, a type of Lord's Sup- 
per 592-598 

Pelagianism 445-454 

and unconditional election .. 584 

Pelagius 445-447 

Persecution 144 

Person, human, unity of, fellow- 
ship of properties in 804, 805 



PAGE 

Philosophy Modern, Doctrine 

of true presence 787 

PictetllS, Lutherans and Calvin- 

ists 137 

Pietists, early 196 

Predestination, Formula of 

Concord 321-327 

Pre-existence of soul 368 

Presence, the true 601-612 

Sacramental, Lutheran Doc- . 

trine, summary view of... 650 
-657. 

Modes of 650, 812 

History of Doctrine 657-663 

Literature 657, n 

Controversy on, how to be 

decided 700 

Continual, no argument 

against Sacramental 821 

Sacramental, when does it 

begin? 822 

Progress, true, nature of 206 

Propitiation and Sacramental 

presence 654, 657 

Protestant, name of Lutheran 

Church 117 

Pusey, Dr., Testimony of the 

Fathers 658-663 

Quenstedt, Fall 377 

Baptism 544 

Consubstantiation 769 

Race, Human, unity of 366 

nationalism, character of 197 

and Romanism 627 

Realism, Natural 792 

■ Personal 793 

Reformation, Church of the, 

Conservative IV. 

Early efforts for.. 19 

Era, characteristics of... 12, 18 

Festival of 4 

Lessons of, for our time... 19-21 

Occasion and cause 1-21 

Providence and Word in... 17 

Results of 32 

Solutions of its cause 5 

Value of 20, 21 

Confessional Principle V 

Confession of VI., VII. 

Primary Confession of VI. 

Secondary Confessions 

of VII. 

Spirit of 201 

Conservatism of 203 

Specific Doctrines of IX. 

X., XL, XII., XIII., XIV., XV. 



INDEX. 



839 



PAGE 

Regeneration, Baptismal... 564-570 

ReilSSf Luther's Translation 109 

Romanism and Rationalism 627 

Lutheran Church, great bul- 
wark against 187 

and Augsburg Confession... 228 

255. 
Rome, Church of, originally pure 14 

Christians in 194 

Creeds .. 215 

Riiclcert, Augsburg Confession... 228 

239. 
Lord's Supper 641 

Sacramental character 622 

Sacraments, efficacy of. 825 

Chemnitz on 825-828 

Gerhard on 828-829 

Salvation, Infant, Lutheran Sys- 
tem 434-439 

Calvinistic System 434-436 

Pelagian System 434 

Romish System 436 

"Sanctified," (1 Cor. vii. 14) 

sense of 424 

Saviour, a living 652 

Scandinavians.. 152, 153, 156, 157 

Sella ff, Lutheran piety 155 

Sclielling 790, 802 

Schencfcel, Com muni catio Idiom- 

atum 513 

Sclimalcald Articles 280 

Origin of 281 

Necessity of 281 

Value 283 

Scliivahach Articles 356, 409 

Schivenckfeld, Lord's Supper.. 610, 
666, 718. 

Scriptures, not a Creed 183 

interpretation of 799 

Self-contradiction 801 

Self-existence 796 

Selneccer 310 

Sliedd, History of Christian Doc- 
trine VIII. 

Sin, Original 280, IX. 

Formula of Concord 313 

not a creature .' 354 

unity of Church 364 

time of operation 378 

involves all men 381 

imputation 382 

mode of perpetuation 384 

fact of 385 

result 386 

truly sin 391 

names 391 

morbus and vitium 392 



PAGE 

Sin, Original, analogies 394 

relations and connections... 399 

synonyms..: 400 

essence 400 

attributes 402 

acts 403 

penalties 404 

remedy 405 

definition 406 

natural consequence 408 

Scripture proof of 409 

new birth 415 

relation of Baptism to 427 

no man lost for, only 429 

practical uses of doctrine... 454 

-455. 

Soul, propagation of 368 

Space, nature of. 796 

Spaillieim, Lutherans and Cal- 

vinists 134 

i6 Species," meaning of 620 

Spirit and matter 486 

Stapfer, Lord's Supper 774-776 

Stars 816 

Supper, Lord's, Lutheran doc- 
trine of 192 

Formula of Concord 314 

Reformed and Lutheran 

doctrines of 465 

differences noted 491-493 

Reformed theory of, objec- 
tions to 496-501 

two views of 500 

doctrine of, thetically stated XII. 

in its antithesis XIII. 

who are meant? 665 

objections to XIV. 

I. False definition 755 

II. Self-contradiction 766 

III. Impressions of Dis- 
ciples 782 

IV. Visible presence 783 

V. Modern philosophy... 787 

VI. Transubstantiation... 807 

VII. Christ has left world 811 

VIII. Right hand of God... 817 

IX. "In, with, under,"... 819 

X. Continual presence... 821 

XL Sacramental use 822 

XII. Efficacy 824 

Old Testament foreshadows 

of 585-598 

New Testament doctrine 599 

Fathers' Interpretation of... 635 

Non-Lutheran Reformers... 636 

English and American 

writers 637-640 

German interpreters 640 



840 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Slipper, superstitions in 752 

'doctrine, importance of 829 

Symbol, Symbolical Books... 715, 716 

Synecdoche 702 

Systems, Lutheran and Calvinis- 
tic, difference of, source 457 

Tertullian, Lord's Supper.. 675, 742 

-745. 

personal unity of man 805 

Testament, New, Luther's 

translation III. 

defects in 110 

order of books in 100 

revision and publication 101 

■ early impressions 102 

enemies of 103 

counter-translations ... 104, 109 

growth of literature of 108 

merits of. Ill 

Texts, Greek, Luther's 96 

Theodoret, Lord's Supper.. 635, 675 
Theophylact, Lord's Supper.... 635 

Ascension 815 

Theremin, Lord's Supper 776, n 

Theses, Luther's 2 

Thirty Years' War 20, 156 

66 This" (touto) 667-673 

Alford 673 

Hammond 672 

Hengstenberg 672 

Lange 672 

Maldonatus 673 

Schaff 673 

Thoroughness, spirit of our 

time, adverse to 207 

Torgau, Book of 298 

Traducianism 371 

Transubstantiation, Formula 

of Concord 315 

Dr. Shedd. 343 

rejected 623-629 

Fathers, testimony against.. 740 

opposedtosoundmetaphysic 808 

Trinity.. 798 



PAGE 

Turretin, J., Lutherans and Re- 
formed 137 

Type 716 

Ubiquity of Christ's body not 

held by Lutheran Church 131 

Dr. Shedd 349 

Dr. Gerhart 495,496 

Unionism 198 

Unity, Church, true 137, 141, 142, 182 
Umvorthy, Communion of the... 641 
-648. 

Ursinus, faith of infants 580 

Romish and Lutheran inter- 
pretation 628 

Vwtius, faith of infants..-. 580 

Vulgate, Luther's New Testament 93 
-96. 

Wiggers, Lutheran Church 125 

Denmark 156 

Sweden 156, 157 

Will, Free, Formula of Concord 313 

conditions of. 450 

■ — Pelagian views of. 453-454 

Winer, Apology 276 

Wittenberg, beginning of Ref- 
ormation 1 

Word of God, cause of the Ref- 
ormation 6 

Works Good, Formula of Con- 
cord 313 

Ximenes, Cardinal, Polyglot 
Complutensian 8,96,99,108 

Zivingle, Luther 133 

Pelagian 447-450 

denial of 448 

on Lord's Supper 607, 611, 615 

-618, 629, 630, 636. 

original doctrine of 755 

gave a check to Reformation 829 



THE END. 



Hfl 






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Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
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Treatment Date: April 2006 

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